New York police recorded pepperspraying 9-year-old girl

Force’s chief says 'I don’t see that as who we are as a department’ after shocking body camera footage released of incident

Police in Rochester, New York, were seen restraining and spraying a 9-year-old girl with a so-called chemical “irritant”, in two body camera videos released on Sunday. 

The child, who was visibility distraught in the videos, was sprayed with the chemical substance after she was pursued by nine officers who were called the a report of “family trouble” on Friday, the Associated Press  reported.

In a press conference on Saturday, Rochester Police Department alleged that officers were “required” to restrain the child on the floor because she had kicked at them, and refused to get into a patrol car, before they administered the spray.

"For the minor’s safety and at the request of the custodial parent on scene,” the child was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, the department added.

At Sunday’s news conference, Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan described the irritant as pepper spray and declined to defend the officers' actions.

“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," said the police chief. 

“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,” she added, as the two body camera videos were published. 

Police said the girl was afterwards taken to Rochester General Hospital, “where she received the services and care that she needed,” and was later released to her family.

According to a local newspaper, The Democrat and Chronicle, the city’s mayor said prior to the release of the body camera footage that she was concerned that it was a  “child that was harmed during this incident that happened on Friday.”

“I have a 10-year-old child, so she’s a child, she’s a baby. This video, as a mother, is not anything you want to see,” said Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren. 

The city’s police department has come under fire since the since the death of Daniel Prude last year after officers from the put a hood over the black man’s head and pressed his face into the pavement.

It followed demonstrations in Rochester and other US cities last year against police brutality and systemic racism seen by a number of fatal arrests, which included the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd in May 2020.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.