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Rochester Police Slammed For Pepper Spraying A Helpless, Handcuffed 9-Year-Old Girl

By: Kershaw St. JawnsonCategory: News

The Rochester Police Department has some explaining to do, after some of their deplorable cops pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old who was already handcuffed!

Caught on camera, a Rochester police officer pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl who was already in the cop’s car and handcuffed.

The incident happened on Wednesday, January 27th, after law enforcement received a call that there was some sort of “family trouble.”

The girl was allegedly suicidal and wanted to also kill her mother. However, questions arise after she was assaulted by the grown-ups with badges and blue uniforms.

One question which is obvious: “Why did they spray her after she was already constrained?”

Police assert that they were overwhelmed and under-resourced and so they had to subdue the child. Still, two body camera videos of the incident were released five days later on Sunday, January 31, showing the girl clearly cuffed and screaming for her father.

She was in the vehicle and despite her being understandably upset, kicking, and crying— considering she is in the 4th or 5th grade — the multiple officers did seem in control. The spray was some extra sh*t.

Second question: Where was the unit organized to address mental health and social welfare concerns?

Crickets.

The city and the police have responded in a mixture of damage control and justification.

Interim Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said that the way the girl was handled was flat-out wrong.

“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,” she remarked. “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.”

The mayor, Lovely Warren echoed that.

“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 mayor said. “We have to understand compassion, empathy. When you have a child that is suffering in this way and calling out for her dad, I saw my baby’s face in her face.”

Rochester Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson tried to shed light on why his officers responded as they did. This ought to be good.

“It didn’t appear as if she was resisting the officers, she was trying not to be restrained to go to the hospital,” Anderson said as if we were not listening to how crazy that just sounded.

“As the officers made numerous attempts to try to get her in the car, an officer sprayed the young child with OC spray to get her in the car.”

The video shows her in the car … actually sitting with the handcuffs on … she was screaming and crying and trying to move but she was in the car until she fell out after being sprayed.

He then says that as a department they are “not making any excuses for what transpired” But it kinda sounds like that.

The Rochester Police Union Chief, Joshua Potash weighed in.

You listen and decide.

The video also shows this:

A cop said to her, “You’re acting like a child,” and the girl reminded her “I am a child!”

A female officer speaks at one point (there were a lot of cops there) and threatens the less than a decade old child, “This is your last chance, otherwise pepper spray’s going in your eyeballs.”

Then another voice says, “Just spray her at this point.”

Hopefully, this family will be brought to justice. If the child was suicidal, this surely will add to her distress.

The Rochester Police Accountability Board put several suggestions on resolving this matter.

The biggest voice so far that has come out against the Rochester Police Department was New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Congressman Joe Morelle.