Police in Rochester, New York, released body camera footage on Sunday showing a 9-year-old girl handcuffed and sprayed with pepper spray by police officers who responded to a family disturbance call.
During the incident, which took place Friday afternoon, agents restrained the girl by pushing her into the snow to handcuff her while repeatedly screaming for her father, the footage showed.
At one point an officer said, “You act like a child.” She replied, “I am a child.”
When she refused to sit in a police car, an officer sprayed her with pepper spray.
The incident has brought Rochester police back under scrutiny months after the city was devastated by the revelation that Daniel Prude, a black man, had suffocated last year after Rochester police officers hooded him.
The handling of Mr. Prude’s death prompted the town mayor to abruptly fire the police chief in September, and the department was charged with a cover up after it was revealed that officers had characterized Mr. an overdose of drugs.
In Mr. Prude’s case, the camera footage was released six months after his death, only after his family sued the city. According to city documents released last year, at the time of the death, officials repeatedly tried to hide the videos from the public to avoid harmful consequences.
At a press conference on Sunday, police leaders pledged to be more transparent by releasing the camera footage of the girl being sprayed with pepper spray about 48 hours after the incident. The video has been edited to blur her face and her name has not been made public.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you it’s okay for a 9-year-old to be sprayed with pepper spray,” said Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan.
The city’s mayor, Lovely Warren, said the girl reminded her of her own 10-year-old daughter.
“I can tell you, as a mother, this video is not something you want to see,” Mrs. Warren said, her voice rising with emotion.
“This is not something any of us should want to justify, can justify,” she added. “And it is something we have to change.”
She and police officials urged the city’s police officers to respond to incidents with greater empathy and compassion, saying that officers needed better training in de-escalation and the department needed an overhaul of its internal culture.
The incident underscored the long-standing problem that officers in many police departments are trained to subdue violent suspects and are often ill-equipped to deal with people who are distraught or mentally ill.
On Friday afternoon, agents received a call from 911 reporting ‘family problems’ and arrived to find the 9-year-old girl dressed in a black hoodie and colorful leggings. She “indicated that she wanted to commit suicide, and that she wanted to kill her mother,” said Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson on Sunday.
The girl initially tried to run, Mr. Anderson said. She repeatedly yelled at the officers, “I want my father.” As the officers handcuffed her, she begged them to stop, her body covered in snow, the video footage showed.
The officers tried to escort her into the back of a police car so she could be transported to the hospital, said Mr. Anderson.
Sadly and emotionally, the girl said she did not want to get into the car before seeing her father, the video showed. The officers became more and more impatient and strict. She kicked one of the officers, Mr. Anderson said.
Other officers urged her to relax and take a deep breath.
Finally, an officer said, “Just spray her at this point.”
She screamed. After an officer sprayed her in the face with an irritant, officers placed her in the back seat and closed the door. “Unbelievable,” said an officer.
The scene was set in front of houses in an area that resembled a residential area. The video showed at least six police vehicles that had arrived to respond to the call.
The girl was taken to hospital and has since been released.