Rochester (New York) police officers responding to a domestic disturbance call on Wednesday ended up handcuffing a nine-year-old girl and then pepper spraying her as she cried out for her father, CNN reports.
Police body cam footage show the officers handcuffing the girl and walking the crying girl to the police car. When she resists putting her feet in the car, a police officer takes out pepper spray and sprays it in the girl’s face.
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said that she talked to the girl’s mother and that the city’s Person in Health mental health team would be reaching out to the family.
Police were originally called to the home for a “family trouble” issue and were told by the family that the nine-year-old was suicidal. The girl tried to flee when officers arrived.
When the officers tried to get the girl into the police car, she thrashed and kicked on of the officer’s body cams, in the video released Sunday.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that for a nine-year-old to have to be pepper-sprayed is OK. It’s not,” Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said. “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.”