Police officers in Rochester, New York, handcuffed and pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl while responding to what a police official called a report of “family trouble” in an incident sharply criticized by city officials.
Two body camera videos of Friday’s incident released by the police department on Sunday show officers restraining the child, putting her in handcuffs and attempting to get her inside the back of a police vehicle as she repeatedly cries and calls for her father.
After the girl fails to follow commands to put her feet inside the car, the officers are seen pepper-spraying her.
The girl was transported to Rochester General Hospital, where she was later released, according to Rochester Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson.
The officers involved were suspended Monday, according to a news release from city officials. CNN has reached out to the police union for comment.
The incident has troubling similarities to the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died in March after Rochester police pinned him to the ground and placed a hood over his head as he experienced a mental health crisis.
The police body camera footage of that incident, released in August after city officials intentionally delayed its release, led to protests over the police’s treatment of Black people and those experiencing mental health crises. Mayor Lovely Warren later fired the police chief, saying there was a “pervasive problem” in the police department.
CNN has not been able to verify the race of the 9-year-old with authorities or family members.
At a news conference on Sunday, Interim Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said that the police’s treatment of the girl was not acceptable.
“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 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.”
Warren said the girl reminded her of her own young daughter.
“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,” Warren 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.”
Police responded to a report of ‘family trouble’
Officers were called to a home on the afternoon of January 29 for a report of “family trouble,” Anderson said Sunday.
The officers were told the girl was “suicidal” and that she had “indicated that she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom,” the deputy chief explained.
The girl tried to flee from officers, Anderson said, and video released by police shows an officer chase her and attempt to provide assistance.
Afterward, he said, her mother arrived and the body camera video shows the two arguing. Anderson said officers then decided to remove the child from the situation and transport her to an area hospital.
But the girl refused to get inside a police vehicle, “thrashed around,” and kicked an officer, knocking his body camera around, according to Anderson.