New bodycam footage shows police officers in Rochester pepper-spraying and handcuffing a 9-year-old girl

Ashley Collman
Rochester police 9-year-old girl
Police body-camera footage shows officers handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl in Rochester, New York, on Friday. YouTube/Rochester NY Police

  • Videos show cops pepper-spraying and handcuffing a 9-year-old girl in Rochester, New York, on Friday.

  • Police said they were "required" to spray the girl when she refused orders to get in a police car.

  • The police chief has pledged to make sure similar incidents don't happen again.

  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Rochester Police Department in New York on Sunday released two videos showing officers handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle reported that officers were called to a home on Friday afternoon after receiving a report of "family trouble" involving a possible stolen vehicle.

The girl's mother told officers that she feared her daughter was planning to harm herself and others, the newspaper reported.

Warning: Some readers may find the footage distressing.

When the girl arrived, she tried to flee. She "indicated she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom," Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson said at a press conference on Sunday.

In the videos, taken from officers' body cameras, the girl can be heard crying out for her father multiple times. They show officers eventually bringing her down to the ground to restrain her in handcuffs as she lies facedown in a snow-covered street.

The footage shows the officers repeatedly telling her to get in the back of a police car, then unleashing pepper spray on her face.

The Democrat and Chronicle reported that the girl was taken to a hospital for mental-health treatment and that she had since been released back to her family.

The newspaper reported that in a statement on Saturday, the police said the girl's actions in resisting the officers "required" them to take her to the ground and later pepper-spray her. The department did not provide any policies indicating that the officers were required to take such measures with the girl, the Democrat and Chronicle said.

Police Capt. Mark Mura said on Saturday that the incident was under review, and he did not comment on whether any officers had been placed on desk duty during an internal investigation, according to the Democrat and Chronicle.

Read more: Vaccine inequity on Capitol Hill: Members of Congress got their shots but essential Hill workers are still left waiting

Mayor Lovely Warren said at a press conference on Sunday that the girl reminded her of her own 10-year-old daughter and that she was "very concerned about how this young girl was handled by our police department."

"It is clear from the video that we need to do more in supporting our children and families," Warren said.

Interim Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan added: "I'm not going to stand here and tell you that for a 9-year-old to have to be pepper-sprayed is OK. It's not.

"I don't see that as who we are as a department, and we're going to do the work we have to do to ensure that these kinds of things don't happen."

Herriott-Sullivan was named the interim police chief in September after the previous chief, La'Ron Singletary, was fired over the death of Daniel Prude after police officers put him in a spit hood.

Read the original article on Insider

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