Rochester police release video of officers pepper-spraying 9-year-old

I was thinking the same thing, once she was handcuffed they should have been able to physically get her completely in the vehicle with an officer in front and behind without hurting her. Considering her mental state it probably would have been reasonable to have an officer ride in the back with her so she could not hurt herself. Sometimes I think they do things like this to avoid what would amount to bumps considering it is an unarmed cuffed 9 year old girl, and bumps should be mitigated as much as possible, but not unexpected due to the nature of the job.

 

with her hands cuffed behind her there's not a lot she could do if they grabbed her legs.

 

And it's worse than that. She was sprayed by two different officers

 

I'm gonna say no to that. Pepper spray is a step higher in the "use of force continuum" so unless this kid is full-blown stomping my ass, that will not be considered acceptable by any department I've ever worked with.

 

cases like this make me sick to my stomach - there is just no way it should be something that happens

and the worst part is, my fear is the worst punishment the cops will get is a paid vacation

 

I understand your point. However, living in an area with an elected Sheriff I have not observed a conflict between the Sheriff and county executives. What I have also not observed is the revenue generation enforcement activities from County law enforcement that one sees in the big cities or from the State police, e.g., speed traps, use of license scanners for expired tags, and that sort of thing. There was a use of force incident a few years ago involving the Sheriff kicking a serial bank robber in the face after a dangerous high speed chase, but no use of force incidents involving citizens, i.e., voters. I would think that there would be potential for a recall election if there were issues with a Mayor or County Executives.

 

No, FreshAir. You are forgetting the mandatory retraining videos on use of force parts 1-3 and the multiple choice quizzes. That is three hours of their lives that they will never get back. Law enforcement takes this stuff very seriously

 

It is incidents like this that make it so hard to contribute to fraternal police organizations. I used to, but not any more.

 

most people only donate just to get the decal for their car ...

 

It's wonderful to meet a guy on the internet who speaks for most people.

 

agree, I've never donated because my dad did once many years ago and once they had his number they hounded him for donations on the regular. I could also be wrong but I think those organizations tend to spend most of the money they receive trying to get more money and only a small % really does any good.

My attitude is that if I want to help a cop is to stay out of trouble which makes their job easier, be polite and compliant if I find myself in some kid of trouble and if the opportunity presents, buy him/her a cup of coffee on occasion.

If I want to do the opposite, I could be a troublemaker that starts the conversation with "suck my **** " and then resist arrest.

Based on the video, the stupid kid went with plan B, which was a poor choice.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-spraying-incident-involving-girl/4346945001/

Clearly they should have left her handcuffed and freezing in the snow until the Dad got there.

 

I don't believe they couldn't. It is more likely that they were trying to avoid injuring the child, bringing even more public anger towards their profession. I wonder what would have happened if they sent a counselor to handle the situation instead.

 

I raised 5 kids without raising a hand, and rarely raised my voice. It looks like the girl in this story has special needs and gets out of control. Its a tough job and they made a tough call knowing no matter what they did, they are all but guaranteed public outrage from armchair cops who have never had to make such calls.

 

The female cop seemed to be doing quite a good job of calming down the girl and deescalating the situation. Then one of the male cops started screaming ''get in the car'' again and they were back to square one.
Terrible policing.
You need to spend more time and money training your officers to behave like policemen instead of thugs.

 

Normally I would say that you are correct. What I could not wrap my head around was, If they were doing that, then why the 2 different officers pepper sprayed her just as they were closing the door. That was like a big "FU" to her and goes against the idea tht they were being carefull

 

That's funny, the 3 things that stand out to me are that the person in custody
1) was just 9 yrs old,
2) was a girl, and
3) was handcuffed.

Oh, and I almost forgot--
4) there were several officers on site.

If a group of officers cannot get a 9-yr old, handcuffed girl, into a police car w/o using pepper spray, they have no business being police officers. The girl was even sitting on the edge of the seat. All they needed to do is have the cop behind her pull her back while another cop, or 2, if that's what they needed, held her legs together, & straight.

Whatever she was shouting-- & the predominant line was, "I want to see my dad," before she would get in the car willingly-- is really beside the point. She was a 9 yr old girl who was upset; children can shout all kinds of things, that can't automatically be taken as seriously as if said by an adult.

 

True. If cops are expected to raise our kids, they will need a lot more training.

 

So she was already in the car and not fighting when they sprayed her?

 

Yeah. Its at the very end. It looks like 2 officers sprayed her just as they were closing the door.

 

They aren't expected to raise your kids, they do have a duty to protect them though.

 

That's the reality. Don't like it? Then fight for a return to the old ways.

 

Yes, that's a significant part of it.

 

The vast majority of parents will never be in a situation where their nine year old child needs to be detained by police. Even garden variety 'bad parents' can manage to keep their kids out of reach of the law until mid teens.

It takes a very special parental effort to create this situation. You'd need to be wholly and completely determined to fail your child, every single day of that nine years.

 

What if I told you neither option you present is acceptable?