Police in Rochester, New York are facing heavy public scrutiny following an incident where an officer pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old girl. Body camera footage of the encounter released by the department on Sunday, January 31 has sparked a call from the mayor for a review of police procedures.
Police had been responding to a “family trouble” call around 3:30 pm on Friday, January 29, according to department officials. At a press conference the following Sunday, Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson said the call involved a young girl who was threatening violence against herself and others.
WARNING: Strong language and potentially disturbing content.
“She indicated she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom,” Anderson said.
In the body camera footage, an unidentified officer approaches the distraught 9-year-old, who repeatedly asks for her father. The situation then escalates over the next several minutes as the girl’s mother gets involved, passersby interfere, and more officers arrive on the scene.
WARNING: Strong language and potentially disturbing content.
The footage culminates with several officers attempting to force the handcuffed child into a squad car as she refuses to comply.
“I’m gonna pepper spray you and I don’t want to,” an officer tells the girl at one point. “This is your last chance, or else pepper spray is going in your eyeballs.”
Minutes later, another officer says, “Just spray her at this point.”
The officers then spray the girl, who pleads with them to wipe her eyes before the squad car doors close and the footage cuts off.
Not a Job for Police?
The incident has led many in Rochester to question why the police responded instead of the city’s recently-formed Person in Crisis (PIC) team. The city’s Office of Crisis Intervention Services formed the team with the intent to send mental health professionals, rather than police officers, to mental-health-related calls.
However, at Sunday’s press conference, Mayor Lovely Warren said that the team didn’t receive the call because police were already responding to related incidents.
“This call did not come in a form that would have alerted the PIC team,” said Mayor Warren. “It came in a way that would have alerted the response that was given, which was our police department.”
Recreation and Human Services Commissioner Danielle Lyman-Torres noted that the PIC team, which launched less than two weeks ago, is not yet equipped to deal with incidents that the police are already responding to.
“The PIC team is at this time being dispatched to a certain set of calls that they are going to in lieu of RPD,” Lyman-Torres said.
“The co-response protocols that we have built later into the pilot are still in development,” she added.
Mayor Warren also took time to condemn the officers’ actions and to call for change to the police department’s procedures.
“This is not something that any of us should want to justify, can justify, this is something we have to change,” she said. “It’s not an option. We must change how we do business, how we treat people. We have to understand that they are at the very core human beings and we must treat each other was we want to be treated, as we want our loved ones to be treated.”
Meanwhile, the president of Rochester’s police union, the Rochester Police Locust Club, defended the officers in a press conference on Sunday night.
I asked for more information about the officer who sprayed the pepper spray in the face of the 9-year-old child. Here’s Mazzeo’s response: He made a decision that he thought was the best action to take. #roc @DandC pic.twitter.com/yrTt6EaD9H
— Will Cleveland (@WillCleveland13) January 31, 2021
“I’m not saying there are not better ways to do things,” said union President Mike Mazzeo. “But let’s be realistic about what we’re facing… It’s not TV, it’s not Hollywood. We don’t have a simple (situation), where we can put on out our hands and have somebody be instantly handcuffed and comply. It’s not a simple situation.”
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