By The Rochester Police Department continues to face backlash after a recent video showed officers handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl. Now Rochester’s mayor has taken action as an investigation has been launched.
According to the New York Times, Mayor Lovely Warren announced that the officers involved will be suspended until the conclusion of an internal investigation. She continued to state that the state laws and union rules prevented her from taking more serious action.
As previously reported, officers say they were responding to a family problem and claim that the young girl was “suicidal” and that she had “indicated that she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom.”
They arrived at the scene where they say the girl was arguing with her mother, and they decided to remove the girl and take her to the hospital. That eventually led to officers trying to restrain the girl as she tried to get away, and she ended up in handcuffs and was pepper-sprayed as they tried to put her in the back of their vehicle.
Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke about the matter and said, “As a human, this incident is disturbing and as a father, it’s heartbreaking,” he said in a statement. “This isn’t how the police should treat anyone, let alone a 9-year-old girl.”
However, Michael Mazzeo, the president of the union that represents the Rochester police officers, had a completely different outlook and said, “Those officers and those scenes, they broke no policy. There’s nothing that anyone can say they did that’s inappropriate.”
Deputy Chief Anderson says that the department is “looking at a culture change,” and reviewing policies to make those changes happen.
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TSR STAFF: Jade Ashley @Jade_Ashley94
The post Rochester Mayor Suspends Officers After Body Camera Footage Shows Them Handcuffing & Pepper-Spraying A 9-Year-Old Girl (Update) appeared first on The Shade Room.
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