By Tim Stelloh- NBC News
Authorities in Rochester, New York, are investigating an incident that was captured on video and the local police pepper spray a 9 year old girl after responding to an ad for ‘family problems’.
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said on Sunday that she had ordered Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan to investigate Friday’s incident.
“This is not something none of us should justify”noted Warren, who said he saw it your baby’s face when he looked at the 9-year-old girl.
Police responded to the call after reporting that the girl was in danger of harming herself and her mother, deputy chief Andre Anderson told reporters.
When the officers tried to transfer the minor to a police car to take her to a hospital, he resisted and kicked one of the officers, Anderson said.
A camera video of the body released by police on Sunday shows authorities handcuffing the minor as she repeatedly yells at her father and refuses to get into the vehicle.
[Reformar, desmantelar, quitarle fondos o abolir la policía. Qué significan las peticiones para acabar con la brutalidad policial]
“You act like a girl,” says one of the officers at one point.
“I’m a girl”you hear the minor respond.
In the video, it is heard that agents threaten to keep her with pepper spray if she continues to resist. If an officer did, Anderson said, “the effects of that wouldn’t work.”
It is unclear what happened before or after the video, which was edited by police, although Anderson said the girl was eventually taken to Rochester General Hospital and released.
The agents appearing in the video have not been identified and no further details about the incident are available. Rochester police did not respond to a request for a report on the incident on Sunday evening.
The city police union also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in the comments cited by Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, the union’s president, Mike Mazzeo, said that the officer made the decision to subdue the girl and acted in a way that did not injure her.
“I’m not saying there aren’t better ways to do things,” Mazzeo told the paper, “but let’s be realistic about what we’re dealing with. It’s not TV, it’s not Hollywood. We don’t have one. [situación] simple, in which we can put our hands out and someone can immediately handcuff and comply. “
The confrontation comes less than a year after Daniel Prude, 41, died while being held by Rochester police with a hood over his head.
[Qué son las ‘capuchas para no escupir’ como la que la policía colocó en la cabeza de Daniel Prude]
The chief of police and all commanders resigned after Prude’s death, and the city pushed through law enforcement reforms, including moving crisis intervention from the police arena.
The city launched a “people in crisis” response team earlier this month, but this did not respond to the confrontation on Friday because the first call to 911 didn’t justify it, according to Warren.
“There were a number of events that happened at this location at the same time, all of which required a response from the police,” said Warren.
The mayor added that the city plans to provide a joint response between the police and the crisis team to “improve the way we protect our community.”