The Rochester, New York police department is under fire after a 9-year-old was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed by an officer. Body camera footage of the incident was released Sunday. According to the Rochester publication Democrat & Chronicle, police responded to a call about “family trouble.” The girl’s mother reportedly told police she was worried “her daughter would harm herself and others.” 

Officers then tried to put the girl in the back of a patrol car, at which point she pulled away and kicked at them. In a statement Saturday, they said this action “required” an officer to take the girl down to the ground. Then, they said, “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 American Medical Response ambulance to arrive.

Police said the girl — who during the episode repeatedly cried out for her father — disobeyed multiple commands to put her feet in the car. A Rochester police officer was then “required” to spray an “irritant” in the handcuffed girl’s face, the department said.

The New York Times adds:

The incident has brought renewed scrutiny to the Rochester Police Department, months after the city was roiled by the disclosure that Daniel Prude, a Black man, suffocated to death last year after Rochester police officers had placed him in a hood.

https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/1356105016206110724

An investigation is underway to determine whether the officers should be disciplined, but the local police union is defending the officers’ actions.

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This has opened up a debate though over how to deal with mental health on the scene of incidents like this. The Washington Post writes:

Watch more from the ABC affiliate in Rochester above.