Lovely Warren, mayor of Rochester, New York, said the city, which was recently launched and which non-law enforcement officers respond to some emergency calls, did not respond to an incident in which police sprayed a 9-year-old girl with pepper spray. 911 call.
‘Unfortunately, this was not an incident where PIC [Person In Crisis] The team would be called, “Warren said Sunday. This call does not come in a form that the PIC team warned. It came in a way that would let the reaction, which was our police department, know. ‘
Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson said on Sunday that officers responded to a report of ‘family problems’ at 3:21 p.m. Friday. He said ‘officers were made aware that a 9-year-old’ girl was ‘suicidal.’ She “indicated that she wanted to kill herself and that she wanted to kill her mother,” Anderson said. He said she initially tried to run.
Rochester police on Sunday released a video camera showing the young girl being handcuffed while repeatedly shouting at her father and being sprayed with pepper spray by police officers.
An unknown number of officers were suspended Monday while an internal investigation is underway, Warren’s spokesman said.
The incident took place almost a week after Warren announced the launch of the Person in the Crisis Team and said it would provide a compassionate, non-law enforcement emergency response to people experiencing emotional or emotional distress. Warren said the pilot program would run until June, with the aim of continuing it and continually improving it.
The team, which takes place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, offers alternative answers to emergency calls involving mental health, drug abuse and related issues. She said on Sunday that the aim was “to be able to respond together when needed to improve the way we protect the community.”
“This incident will definitely inform the efforts,” she said. “However, we should not unfairly belittle or belittle the efforts of the team if they are truly not guilty.”
Rochester formed the Person in Crisis Team as part of a response to the death of Daniel Prude last year in police custody.
Rochester police were widely criticized in September when it was announced that Prude, a black man, had been strangled to death in March after officers put him in a spittoon. The body camera video in Prude’s case was released six months after his death, just after his family sued the city. The video showed how Prude, who apparently had a mental health crisis, was handcuffed and naked with a spittoon over his head.
According to police officers, police reports and other documents released by the city last year, police commanders called on city officials to release the video because they feared the violent aftermath if it appeared during nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd in the Minneapolis Police Department. year.
Dealing with the death of Prude, which marked police as a result of an overdose of drugs, led Warren to fire the chief of police in September.
Warren and the best police buyer at a news conference on Sunday promised to be more transparent.
Warren said police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan warned her about the video of the 9-year-old girl being sprayed with pepper on Friday. Warren said she reviewed it early Saturday and that it was released to the public about 48 hours after the incident on Sunday. Warren said the video came from the cameras of two officers, including the officer who spray-painted the girl. “If we finish editing the others, we’ll make them available too,” Warren said.
Warren, who says the girl reminds her of her ten-year-old daughter, sometimes seemed emotional.
“I can tell you that as a mother, this video is nothing you want to see,” she said. “It’s not something any of us want to justify. Can justify. And it’s something we need to change. It’s not an option.”
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The video was processed to blur the girl’s face, and her name was not made public. Police did not return requests for comment Monday. Warren said she spoke to the girl’s mother and that she was concerned about protecting the girl’s identity.
Herriott-Sullivan said Sunday: “I’m not going to stand here and tell you that it’s okay for a 9-year-old to have to spray pepper spray. It is not.”
At one point in the video, an officer says, “You are acting like a child.” The girl replied, “I am a child.”
An officer tried to land her in the back of a police car so she could be taken to the hospital, Deputy Chief Anderson said.
“And while he was doing that, the young child eventually refused,” Anderson said. She sighed. She kicked one of the officers in the chest and carried his body. ‘
But Anderson said the girl did not appear to be resisting the officers. “She tried not to be confined to going to the hospital,” he said. While officers made several attempts to get her into the car, one of them sprayed pepper spray, Anderson said. “And the consequences worked,” he said of the city and police officers.
“This is what we are concerned about – the method used at the time,” he said.
The girl was taken to Rochester General Hospital and later released, Anderson said.
Anderson said he made no apologies and reflected Warren and Herriott-Sullivan by promising transparency and reforms.
“It’s our effort to make sure we’re transparent, that we respond to things relatively quickly,” Anderson said, adding that the police department is “looking at a culture change.”
“We need to make changes here,” he said.
Some of the changes could be announced as early as this week, Anderson and Warren said.
“Unfortunately, the legislation and the union contract prevent me from taking more immediate and serious steps,” Warren said in a statement announcing the officers’ suspension. “I will lead the charge that these laws be changed as part of our response to the Governor’s Executive Order 203.”
New York State Senate Samra Brouk and Rochester Demond Meeks, both from Rochester, passed legislation Monday afternoon banning police from using chemicals on minors.
“The disturbing experience a 9-year-old girl has had in our community – including handcuffs and pepper spray – should never happen to another child,” Brouk said in a statement. “This legislation will ensure that when a child is in crisis, they will never again have to deal with such violence in the form of pepper spray or other chemical irritants.”
Meeks said the incident Friday shook me and our community to the deepest essence.
“The same officers charged with serving and protecting us brutally attacked a child from our community,” Meeks said. “It hurt my heart to see a child being treated this way. She is less than treated, and that is completely unacceptable.”