ROCHESTER, NY (AP) – A 9-year-old black pepper sprayed by police asked “please don’t do this to me” and “burns” while waiting handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser for 16 minutes , according to new camera images from the police force released Thursday.
The city of Rochester suspended police officers seen in an initial video released Sunday spraying an irritating chemical on the face of the desperate, handcuffed child. Mayor Lovely A. Warren said the city posted nearly 90 minutes of additional video since the Jan. 29 arrest in order to be transparent.
In the video, the girl can be heard complaining and complaining that she wants her father and saying that her eyes are burning while an agent tells her that an ambulance is on its way, but it has been stopped by the snowy roads.
“Officer, please don’t do this to me,” he says at one point.
“You did it yourself, sir,” the officer replies.
A lawyer for the girl’s mother could not be contacted immediately to comment on whether she saw the new video.
The girl asks several times when the ambulance will come to clean the pepper spray from her eyes and asks that the handcuffs be removed as the liquid enters her mouth.
“If you stare at the window, the cold air will feel nice,” an officer tells him as the wait stretches.
“It burns really badly,” she says.
“It is supposed to burn. It’s called pepper spray, ”he is told.
The girl’s mother, Elba Pope, said she called police during an argument with her spouse, but asked officers to call mental health services when it became clear her fourth-grade daughter was on her way. to a collapse.
The video shows officers restraining and scolding the screaming girl, telling her to lose patience as they fought in the snow to put her in the back of a police cruiser.
Officers are suspended pending completion of the investigation. Warren said he asked police chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan to complete it quickly.
Pope has filed a notice of claim, retaining his right to sue.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the new videos released Thursday were “even more shocking and disturbing” than the video released Sunday.
“New Yorkers in every corner of the state are sick of these actions and, as a father of three, I am furious,” Cuomo said in a prepared statement.
The girl’s harsh treatment came when Rochester police are under scrutiny for the death of Daniel Prude last spring. Police handcuffed Prude, put a hood on his head and pressed him to the ground until he stopped breathing.