Mayor Lovely Warren of Rochester, New York, said the newly launched city team that provides non-police response to some emergency calls has not responded to an incident in which police threw pepper spray at a 9-year-old girl due to nature of the 911 call.
“Unfortunately, this was not an incident where PIC [Person In Crisis] The team would have been called, “Warren said on Sunday.” This call did not come in a way that would alert the PIC team. It came in a way that would have alerted the answer that was given, which was our police department. “
Deputy Chief of Police Andre Anderson said on Sunday that at 3:21 pm on Friday, police officers responded to a “family problems” report. He said “the police were told that a 9-year-old” girl “was suicidal”. She “indicated that she wanted to kill herself and wanted to kill her mother,” said Anderson. He said that she initially tried to escape.
Rochester police released a video of the body’s camera on Sunday, which showed the young woman being handcuffed while shouting repeatedly for her father and being sprayed with pepper spray by police officers.
An undisclosed number of police officers was suspended on Monday, pending an internal investigation, Warren’s spokesman said.
The incident came almost a week after Warren announced the launch of the Person in Crisis Team, saying it “would provide a compassionate and non-police emergency response for people experiencing emotional or behavioral turmoil.” Warren said the pilot program will run until June, with the aim of continuing and improving it continuously.
The team 24 hours a day, seven days a week provides alternative responses to emergency calls involving mental health, substance abuse and related issues. She said on Sunday that the goal is “to be able to provide a joint response when needed to improve the way we protect the community”.
“This incident will certainly inform these efforts,” she said. “However, we must not unfairly discredit or downgrade the team’s efforts when they are not really to blame.”
Rochester formed the Person in Crisis Team as part of a response to Daniel Prude’s death in police custody last year.
Rochester police were widely criticized in September, when it was revealed that Prude, a black man, died of suffocation in March after police officers put him in a hood. The video of the body’s camera in Prude’s case was released six months after his death, only after his family sued the city. The video showed Prude, who appeared to be having a mental health crisis, handcuffed and naked with a spit hood on his head.
Police commanders urged city officials to postpone the public release of the video because they feared violent consequences if it was released during national protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, according to emails, police reports and other documents that the city released last year.
The treatment of Prude’s death, which the police characterized as a result of a drug overdose, prompted Warren to fire the chief of police in September.
Warren and senior police officials promised to be more transparent at a news conference on Sunday.
Warren said police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan warned her about the video of the 9-year-old girl being sprayed with pepper spray on Friday. Warren said he reviewed it on Saturday morning and that it was released to the public on Sunday, about 48 hours after the incident. Warren said the video was from the cameras of two policemen, including the officer who sprayed the girl with pepper spray. “As soon as we finish writing others, we will make them available as well,” said Warren.
Warren, who said the girl reminded her of her 10-year-old daughter, seemed moved at times.
“I can say that this video, as a mother, is nothing you want to see,” she said. “This is not something that any of us should want to justify. It can justify. And it is something that we have to change. It is not an option.”
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The video was edited to blur the girl’s face, and her name has not been made public. Police did not return requests for comment on Monday. Warren said that she had spoken to the girl’s mother and that she was concerned with protecting the girl’s identity.
Herriott-Sullivan said on Sunday: “I’m not going to stay here and say that for a 9-year-old to have to be peppered with everything is fine. It’s not.”
At one point in the video, a police officer says, “You are acting like a child.” The girl replies, “I am a child.”
A policeman tries to put her in the back of a police car so she can be taken to the hospital, said Anderson, the deputy.
“And in doing so, over time, the child refused,” said Anderson. “She struggled. In fact, at one point, she kicked one of the policemen in the chest and dropped his camera.”
But Anderson said it didn’t look like the girl was resisting the cops. “She was trying not to be contained to go to the hospital,” he said. While the police were making several attempts to get her into the car, one of them sprayed pepper spray on her, Anderson said. “And the effects of that worked,” he said, which worries city officials and police.
“This is the concern we have – it is the method that was used at that time,” he said.
The girl was taken to Rochester General Hospital and later released, Anderson said.
Anderson said he was not making excuses and agreed with Warren and Herriott-Sullivan promising transparency and reforms.
“This is our effort to ensure that we are transparent, that we respond to things relatively quickly,” said Anderson, adding that the police department is “looking for a culture change.”
“We need to make changes here,” he said.
Some of the changes could be announced as early as this week, Anderson and Warren said.
“Unfortunately, state law and the union contract prevent me from taking more immediate and serious measures,” Warren said in a statement announcing the officers’ suspensions on Monday. “I will lead the charge that these laws are changed as part of our response to the governor’s Executive Order 203.”
New York State Sen. Samra Brouk and Assembly Member Demond Meeks, both from Rochester, introduced legislation Monday afternoon to prohibit police from using chemical agents on minors.
“The distressing experience of a 9-year-old girl in our community – including being handcuffed and sprayed with pepper spray – should never happen to another child,” said Brouk in a statement. “This legislation will ensure that when a child is in crisis, he will never again be faced with such violence in the form of pepper spray or other chemical irritants.”
Meeks said the incident on Friday “shook me and our community deeply.”
“The same police officers charged with serving and protecting us, instead, brutally attacked a child in our community,” said Meeks. “It hurt my heart to see a child treated this way. He was treated as less than, and that is totally unacceptable.”