
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Rochester’s Police Accountability Board is calling on the Rochester Police Department to release more information about the call that resulted in officers pepper spraying a handcuffed 9-year-old girl.
One officer has been suspended and two others placed on administrative leave following the incident.
The Police Accountability Board released a statement Wednesday saying it is conducting a review of “the policies, procedures, practices, and training that resulted in a distraught, handcuffed nine year old child being pepper sprayed on Harris Street by Rochester Police Department (RPD) officers.”
The PAB says the only information the RPD turned over for that investigation to-date is an amount of body-worn camera footage that has not yet been shown to the public. It goes on to say:
The unreleased footage shows: how officers dealt with the child’s cries of pain and calls for help as she sat in the back of the police car; how officers dealt with a bystander who may have filmed the incident; and how officers dealt with the mother of the child after the incident.
The child’s family has filed a notice of claim against the City of Rochester and the Rochester Police Department, alleging “infliction of emotional distress, assault, battery, excessive force, false arrest and unlawful imprisonment.”
The PAB is calling on the RPD to release more materials and information about the incident “without delay.”
Read the full release from the Police Accountability Board:
2021.2.3 – PAB Press Release by News 8 WROC on Scribd