Rochester, N.Y., police officers involved in restraining and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl last Friday were suspended Monday by the Mayor's order "at a minimum" until the conclusion of an internal police investigation (article available here). "Unfortunately, state law and union contract prevents me from taking more immediate and serious action," Mayor Warren said in a statement.
The suspensions came after city officials released police body camera footage showing the encounter between officers and the girl. At Sunday’s press conference, interim Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said, “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. 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.”
Officials said that police were responding to a family disturbance and that the girl was suicidal and upset. They said officers detained the minor in order to assist her, and they were trying to get her to move fully inside a police vehicle.
The video, released Sunday, shows the girl crying and begging for her father. Officials have not identified the girl. The number of officers suspended and their names have also not been released.
The officer-worn camera footage, which contains graphic language and disturbing images, shows officers trying to restrain the girl as she falls in the snow. The officers put handcuffs on her as she screams out repeatedly: "I want my dad!"
In a separate video released by police, it appears at least six police vehicles arrive at the scene.
As law enforcement officers try to get the girl in the patrol car, she pleads with officers to get the snow off of her. She screams again and again for her father and says her arm is hurting.
"You're acting like a child," one officer yells at the child. "I am a child!" the girl replies.
The girl, who is sitting in the back of the patrol car with her legs outside on the ground, refuses officer's commands to sit back and move inside the vehicle.
A female officer arrives and implores the girl to comply. "This is your last chance or pepper spray is going in your eyeballs, come on," the female officer says. A few seconds later, the girl screams as she is hit with pepper spray and then begs officers to wipe her eyes. It isn't clear which officer sprayed the eye irritant.