A 9-year-old girl was handcuffed and pepper sprayed by Rochester Police officers responding......

[groundloop]

Source: CNN

Full Headline: A 9-year-old girl was handcuffed and pepper sprayed by Rochester Police officers responding to a call of 'family trouble'


A 9-year-old girl was handcuffed and pepper sprayed by police officers responding to a report of "family trouble" in Rochester, New York, on Wednesday, according to Rochester Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson.

Two body camera videos of the 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 is heard repeatedly crying and calling for her father.

Officers are then seen pepper spraying the girl after she doesn't follow commands to put her feet inside the car.

The girl was transported to Rochester General Hospital where she was later released, Anderson said.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/01/us/rochester-police-pepper-spray-child/index.html

---

At least the Mayor and Deputy Police Chief have gone on record condemning this. The cops involved in this need to be fired NOW, they don't have the temperament for police work.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Child abuse

[yuiyoshida]

15. exactly

wtf were they thinking? I am surprised they didn't shoot the family's dog or cat as well.

[NurseJackie]

2. I have mixed feelings about this.

[groundloop]

9. I'm afraid I don't quite understand .....

IMO the cops totally lost their cool because they didn't know how to deal with the situation.

[Ferrets are Cool]

13. Please explain if you will

[NurseJackie]

21. No. I've said all I want to say...

... and for obvious reasons, I'll just leave it at that.

[lagomorph777]

22. Yikes.

Hard to imagine how feelings on this could be "mixed."

[My Pet Orangutan]

46. I'll try

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,"

[womanofthehills]

60. In the longer video on Twitter, the girl was accusing her mom

Of stabbing her father. The mother was the totally psycho one in the video.

[ArizonaLib]

50. It's a complex situation

The family needs access to more and better help, like many others. Looks like several perfect storms came together to make this happen.

[Humanist_Activist]

32. WTF? N/t

[NealK]

51. I have mixed feelings about your post. nt

[NurseJackie]

57. Okay.

[NealK]

64. Okely dokely.

[Walleye]

3. Were they in fear for their lives from a nine year old girl?

[Wuddles440]

38. Plus,....

she already had been restrained with handcuffs and posed absolutely no threat!!! Totally negligent in the application of the Use of Force Continuum - incredibly reckless and abusive behavior. If not subjected to prosecution, they should certainly be harshly disciplined or terminated. Unfortunately, the police union will defend their indefensible actions.

[Walleye]

40. Can you imagine one of these cops being your father or husband

I’m betting they are just as cruel with their own family. Controlling assholes must have their orders obeyed.

[Wuddles440]

49. Sad, but so true.

[NurseJackie]

68. Individuals in handcuffs can still be a threat to others and to themselves.

already had been restrained with handcuffs and posed absolutely no threat!!!

That's not entirely true. She was kicking and fighting. Individuals in handcuffs can still be a threat to others and to themselves. Not everything is as binary as it appears to be. All I'm trying to say is that it's probably best to allow the dust to settle and the facts to come out before making such demands.

[Wuddles440]

70. While I agree..

that someone in handcuffs/restraints could still be considered a physical threat in certain situations, this was not one of those! Demanding that a nine year old stop "acting like a child" is in itself disturbing and deploying pepper spray was nothing short of abusive. I've based my conclusions on 30 years of professional experience as criminal investigator and supervisor - the actions of this officer exhibit a blatant and callous disregard for both the Use of Force protocols and the welfare of the child.

[NurseJackie]

71. I continue to have mixed feelings on this matter, and will not judge them as harshly as others.

[Ilsa]

4. They should be prosecuted for child abuse.

You don't pepper spray children, no matter how whiny or non-compliant they are.

If I had a time machine, I'd send those LEOs back about 500 years.

[poli-junkie]

5. Why call the cops in the first place?

[FeelingBlue]

6. They dialed the wrong number.

Fewer people would be abused and killed if mental health workers were called instead of cops.

[NewDayOranges]

11. THIS! So much THIS!

Police Departments should hire fewer cops and more social workers, therapists and behavioral experts!

[groundloop]

12. But sadly we don't have nearly enough mental health specialists available in this country.

I see two issues:

1. We obviously need far more mental health professionals in this country who are trained to deal with crisis situation like this.

2. Police training needs to be drastically changed to teach them to be able to deal with people better, and to deescalate situations. Police training also needs to screen out those who aren't capable of dealing with tense situations without losing their cool.

I have to think of my neighbor who is a retired cop. Throughout his entire career he never fired his gun, and even refused to keep his service revolver when it was offered to him as a retirement gift. I'm pretty sure he'd have been able to deal with a situation like this without traumatizing a 9 year old child.

[JonLP24]

66. This is dangerous for those with mental illness

Untreated Mentally Ill 16 Times More Likely to Be Killed By Police, Study Says

https://time.com/4144276/mentally-ill-police-killings-study/

“Fewer than 5 percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness,” they write.

(Snip)

“Our research finds that across the board, the mentally ill are 60 to 120 percent more likely than the average person to be the victims of violent crime rather than the perpetrators.”

https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/12/11/mental-illness-wrong-scapegoat-shootings/

Defund the police. Fund mental health treatment. She is only 9 years old and she was pepper sprayed.

[TygrBright]

28. Only if "mental health workers" had suitable transport, backup on call, and a suitable place...

...to take agitated people who can't be calmed and de-escalated at the scene.

When all that is available, we'll have a workable system.

In the mean time, this incident is going to be a no-win tragedy all around.

sadly,
Bright

[stopdiggin]

31. yes. unfortunately there are a number of steps

(rather big steps) between here and there. Just saying we need more mental health -- doesn't get us past 911 call, response, dispatch, diffusion, family interaction, placement and intake .... I don't think anybody is saying we shouldn't be working toward these goals -- but there's some darned big steps involved in realizing them. And, in the meantime -- the police are going to be the ones showing up on your street.

[abqtommy]

7. We don't really need further evidence of irresponsible and counterproductive

actions performed by police here in the U.S. But this incident certainly underscores the fact
that it's way past time to take action to make positive/productive changes NOW!

[trc]

8. Police union defends the actions of these officers according to the report.

I am a strong supporter of unions, but damn, police unions seem to be a huge part of the problem in dealing with bad or badly trained officers.

[Grokenstein]

24. Here we go

Link to tweet

(click on the birdie to see the responses)

[Walleye]

41. Typical of an abuser to say the victim made them do it

[Humanist_Activist]

33. Training is the issue, they are not trained to deesculate, but rather

The opposite.

[mr_lebowski]

10. Part of the problem is that this shouldn't really even be 'police work'

We need trained medical people who can respond to mental health crises in a more humane and productive manner.

At this point you can only call police in most areas I would assume, and they are like a hammer in situations where everything is clearly not a nail.

[iluvtennis]

17. + agree. Would be optimal for mental trained health person to be part of police team to

be dispatched to these type of calls.

BTW, I read that the girl had threatened suicide and said she also wanted to kill her mom. Maybe the pepper spray was the only way the [untrained mental health processional] police could use to get her under control.

One of my teen daughters use to threaten suicide/to do harm to herself and I called police many times as it was only emergency service available to me.

[mopinko]

26. and they hate those calls.

i've had to make that call a couple of times, but fortunately i am white.
at least in chi, if you know to ask for a crisis team you get trained cops and the fire dept.

[ripcord]

44. When you call the police you get a police response.

[Me.]

14. I Count At Least 5 Cops On The Scene

1 nine year old

[ripcord]

18. I see the problem as the family calling the police to deal with a 9 year old

[Me.]

20. I UNderstand They Mis-Dialed

Perhaps they should've been referred elsewhere

[marble falls]

16. An example what the horribly named "defund the police" was trying to address: unqualified ...

... police expensively dealing with issues beyond their ken.

Seven police cars in the photo, somewhere between seven and fourteen cops vs a nine-year-old child.

[Ziggysmom]

19. She's a very big 9 y/o, can see why parents can't control her.

Cops are not mental health workers. They hate these types of calls.
Why didn’t their county behavioral health team get a call before it escalated? Having worked with populations having psych impairments, you see that families need to know what is available when these situations occur. Police should be a very last resort.

[pennylane100]

29. I am not sure you need a mental health person to know you do not handcuff 9 year olds.

I do not think it is unrealistic to expect that cops should know that.

[radical noodle]

23. After watching the videos

I felt the mother escalated the situation. Someone needs to do some serious research into this family situation.

[Denvermosaic]

25. When I read about police stories of similar nature before watching the video, I immediately assume

the children are minorities. Yet again, I am still right.

[ashredux]

27. If they cannot control a nine-year-old girl without having to pepper spray her...

Then they are extremely poor police officers. Either they are incompetent, or they all hopped up on steroids. They don’t need a badge and a gun...

[BobTheSubgenius]

30. Does the City of Rochester or the State of New York award medals of valour?

What fearless crusaders for law and order!!!

[RVN VET71]

34. Some questions about this

1. Why was the girl suicidal?
2. Why did she say she wanted to kill her mother?
3. Why were the police called? And who called them?
4. Why was the girl calling for her father?
5. Were there prior episodes of this girl threatening her own life and the lives of others?
6. Was the girl being abused -- physically or psychologically -- by her mother? Abused to the point where she’d had it and acted out emotionally with threats of violence.
7. Many, many more.

The police reacted to what they believed was a potentially life threatening situation. Regardless of their over-reaction to the scene, did they or any other cop attempt to get answers to the above questions?

I won’t defend the pepper-spraying, but I won’t condemn the officers out of hand without knowing more about the circumstances facing them on the scene. It’s too easy sometimes to jump to conclusions in matters like this before all the facts are known.

[Nitram]

36. What ashredux said: If grown men trained to deal with emergencies and violence cannot handle a

nine-year-old without using pepper spray, they should be fired. Immediately. No need for a trial, just get them the hell off the force. I can think of no extenuating circumstance in which it would be acceptable for police officers to pepper spray a nine-year-old. If she had a loaded gun or a knife, pepper spray could result in one or more deaths.

[NurseJackie]

39. The videos here are longer than what CNN's website provided...

(Scroll down)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rochester-police-pepper-spray-9-year-old-girl/

[GeorgeGist]

45. Except for the woman ...

they're dumber than dirt. Fuckem to hell.

[RVN VET71]

47. Cops hadn't a clue how to handle that situation

And they seemed to have no intention of finding a clue how to handle that situation. The girl said her mother had stabbed her father -- and the cops seemed not to hear her. I don’t understand their deafness.

And the mother was belligerent and foul mouthed. Apparently she called the police. Also apparently the police should have had sense enough to de-escalate by treating the child as a human being instead of an undisciplined animal. She was not threatening them. She needed to be removed from angry mama, to a place where she could calm down and feel safe enough to tell her story. The cops, instead, terrified her.

I really cannot understand why the cops didn’t think to calm her down and say, simply, we are not putting you back in that house, we are going to get you out of here so you can tell us what happened. Where was the cop to tell the mother to stand back, to leave the child alone?

The situation screamed out for that child to be separated from her mother until the facts were discerned. The kid was terrified and the cops made matters much worse.

Fire them? I don’t know. it would not bother me overmuch to hear they’d been dismissed, at least based on the incompetence they demonstrated. The child was not a criminal and was not their enemy. They, however, treated her as if she was.

Shameful.

Thank you for the link.

[HUAJIAO]

52. THANK YOU!!

Everybody here jumping to conclusions without knowing the full situation. I also watched the entire video, at least..

Clear the cops didn't handle this right by any means...

I live near Rochester and know the police dept definitely has a mixed rep. Nevertheless, while not condoning the spray, nobody here really knows the full story.

Incoming, 10,9,8,7,6..........

[womanofthehills]

59. There is a long video of this on Twitter

It’s very disturbing. It begins with a policeman chasing the girl. Then the mother catches up and is super abusive to the girl. The girl accuses the mother of stabbing her father in the stomach. The mother said the blood she saw was the mother’s blood, not the fathers. The girl says her dad was holding his stomach because the mom stabbed him and the mother goes psycho crazy trying to grab girl. Cop calls for other police to arrest mother and then 9 yr old who was being crazy abused by her mother - starts screaming to cops not to take her mother to jail because she is pregnant. It was all from the policeman who was chasing the girl’s camera. The mother was super abusive to this kid - yelling I’m the one who has custody. I hope she was not released back to her mom.

[Nitram]

35. Yet another example of authoritarian and totally clueless law enforcement out of control.

Is there no point at which the nation will realize we have to do something to change police culture, norms, regulations, and training?

[moreland01]

37. In Colorado

they would have shot her up with ketamine. I find it impossible to believe that these huge males couldn't handle a 9 yr old girl. And to pepper spray her and then handcuff her is just inhumane.

[sakabatou]

42. WTAF?!

[get the red out]

43. Police need to be trained in handling

those suffering from mental illness, and children. They can't make shit up as they go along.

[johnthewoodworker]

48. Report from a previous County registered nurse from Milwaukee.gaurdin

I worked for the Milw. Co. Behavioral Health Center in 2012. I'm retired now. Among the jobs we had in Crisis Services was to work with the City and County police in the area on experiencing dangerous behaviors regarding mental health patients. Two points: Milwaukee county hated spending the money to care for the mentally ill and is now contracting with private vendors. These private vendors have a greater degree of protection from direct supervision.2) The police are not all good people. I know this point by experience. While there are good cops there is also a good number of bad cops. Bad cops are normally protected by the administration and the police union.Our ability to get rid of bad cops is limited and probably won't change any time soon. Be prepared for more grim stories.

[turtleblossom]

53. Wonder what's the ethnicity of the girl.

[perfessor]

54. When your only tool is a hammer ...

every problem looks like a nail. We must de-militarize the police.

[onecaliberal]

55. Without watching the video. Let me guess, the child is not white.

[TexasBushwhacker]

58. You are correct

She is also large for her age, but certainly not as large as a grown man.

[onecaliberal]

61. It never gets any less sickening. What in the actual hell?

[TexasBushwhacker]

62. I agree

There were several cops there. If they can't get a female into a vehicle without pepper spraying her, they are in the wrong fucking business. They are letting their anger take over and they simply cannot do that.

[onecaliberal]

63. There is clearly zero de-escalation training going on. And no enforcement when policy isn't

Followed. They just don’t even try.
If a parent did to their own child, what those officers did to that child, they would go to jail.

[NurseJackie]

69. Did you watch the entire longer video, or just the CNN edited clips?

They just don’t even try.

Did you watch the entire longer video, or just the CNN edited clips?

[kimbutgar]

56. The biggest problem with police train g nowadays that they forget the citizens they are supposed

To protect they view as enemy combatants and not as their fellow citizens who they are supposed to protect and serve not terrorize.

This is a shameful example of why law enforcement needs to be reformed immediately. Fundjng needs to go in retraining and creation and use of crisis intervention teams instead of trigger happy police.

[NealK]

65. That's disgusting and unjustifiable.

[Judi Lynn]

67. Rochester suspends police officers who pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl

By
Reis Thebault,
Shayna Jacobs and
Jaclyn Peiser
Feb. 1, 2021 at 8:29 p.m. CST

The city of Rochester, N.Y., has suspended the police officers involved in handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl last week, officials said Monday, addressing an incident that has brought renewed scrutiny to an already-embattled department.

The city has not named the officers or said exactly how many have been suspended, but the disciplinary measures will last at least until the completion of an internal investigation, Rochester spokesman Justin Roj said.

The suspensions come one day after police released disturbing body-camera footage of the Friday encounter, which shows multiple officers using force against a young girl in obvious distress while they responded to a “family trouble” call.

“What happened Friday was simply horrible, and has rightly outraged all of our community,” Mayor Lovely Warren said in a statement announcing the suspensions.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/01/rochester-police-officers-pepper-spray-video-9-year-old/