A police officer who handcuffed and pepper-sprayed a nine-year-old girl in Rochester, New York was suspended Monday at the mayor’s request. Two other officers involved in the incident, which happened last week, have been placed on administrative leave.
“What happened Friday was simply horrible, and has rightly outraged, all of our community,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren told AFP.
The nine-year-old was pepper-sprayed after responding to a call of “family in trouble”. The girl was restrained and handcuffed by officers in an attempt to get her inside the back of a police vehicle.
She was suffering from a serious mental health episode and was threatening to take her own life and that of her mother. Footage from the body cam shows the girl crying out and calling for her father as she struggles against the police officials.
The police officer, at one point, is heard saying, “You are acting like a child,” to which, the girl responded, “I am a child.”
The police officials eventually drove her to a hospital. The girl was discharged from later.
“Unfortunately, this was not an incident where PIC [Person In Crisis] Team would have been called,” Warren said. She also said, “I have a 10-year-old daughter. So she’s a child; she’s a baby. And I can tell you that this video, as a mother, is not anything that you want to see. It’s not.”
The ethnicity of the girl is not known.
In March last year, African-American Daniel Prude was pinned down and a spit hood put over his head, while police officers tried dealing with him as he had a mental health episode. Prude, who was brain dead after the incident, was put on life support. Seven days after the incident, Prude died after his family took him off life support.
