Black Lives Matter protesters overturned the barricades surrounding a Rochester, New York police station on Monday night as they demonstr...
Black Lives Matter protesters overturned the barricades surrounding a Rochester, New York police station on Monday night as they demonstrated against the actions of police officers who pepper sprayed a nine-year-old girl while they arrested her.
The barricades came down as it was announced the officers involved in the incident on Friday, have been suspended.
On Monday evening, the demonstrators chanted 'Black lives matter!' as they managed to tip over the metal barriers set up outside the precinct before making their way up to the inner parking lot fence.
Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrated outside Rochester police station
Demonstrators overturned barricades as they protested the pepper-spraying of a nine-year-old girl on Monday night
A nine-year-old girl is handcuffed in police custody in a police cruiser after police used pepper spray on her as she screamed for her father
The mayor of Rochester, New York, ordered the immediate suspension of the officers involved which saw the girl sprayed while she was handcuffed, in an incident that was all caught on police body-camera video.
Mayor Lovely Warren said in a message posted on Twitter that the suspensions, announced after she met with the city's police chief, would continue 'at a minimum' until a police internal investigation of Friday's arrest is completed.
'What happened Friday was simply horrible, and has rightly outraged, all of our community,' the mayor said. 'Unfortunately, state law and union contract prevents me from taking more immediate and serious action.'
Neither the mayor nor the police department made it clear exactly how many officers would be suspended.
People protest after police handcuffed and sprayed a chemical irritant at a nine-year-old girl in Rochester, New York
Several protesters gathered outside the Rochester PD to air their grievances
Even some young children were seen at Monday afternoon's protest into the pepper-spraying
Demonstrators had been out in the streets of Rochester before heading to the police precinct
Those who made it past the barricades ended up shaking the fence in the parking lot
The fences appeared to be overturned almost in slow motion and there was no 'storming'
It took tens or protesters to overturn the interconnected metal barricades
Protesters marched through the streets of Rochester, New York after the incident last week
She added that she would 'lead the charge' in seeking changes to state law to allow municipal governments to take swifter action to discipline officers in such cases.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said Monday her office was 'looking into' what happened. She called the incident 'deeply disturbing and wholly unacceptable.'
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo condemned the officers' actions in a statement issued Monday.
'As a human, this incident is disturbing and as a father, it´s heartbreaking-this isn´t how the police should treat anyone, let alone a 9-year-old girl,' the statement said.
'Rochester needs to reckon with a real police accountability problem, and this alarming incident demands a full investigation that sends a message this behavior won´t be tolerated,' he added.
Video shows the girl drop to the ground before she is handcuffed face down in the snow
The girl repeatedly cried out to see her father during the ordeal, video released on Sunday shows
The girl later asks for a female officer, who tells her she will be pepper sprayed in the face
Officers were seen trying to get the girl to sit up and pull her feet inside the car as she resisted
The New York Civil Liberties Union said Rochester police should no longer be involved in mental health crises.
'There is no conceivable justification for the Rochester police to subject a 9-year-old to pepper spray, period,' NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said Monday.
Also Monday, two Rochester state lawmakers, Sen. Samra Brouk and Assemblyman Demond Meeks, both Democrats, announced legislation to prohibit use of chemical agents against minors by police officers.
'To see such horrific footage of the mistreatment of a little girl, no less, was simply unreal. We have to remember who we´re talking about here,' Brouk said during a video news conference. 'This is a child. She´s in elementary school.'
Police have said the officers involved were responding to a family disturbance call.
Video footage taken during the incident showed police wrestling the girl to the ground in the snow.
'You´re acting like a child,' an officer tells her.
'I am a child,' the girl, who appears to be black, says as she screams, crying for her father.
The girl then asked for assistance in wiping her eyes after being pepper sprayed by cops
A total of nine officers and supervisors responded to the call before the girl was pepper sprayed
The police body camera video shows numerous police cars and officers on the snowy scene. After being restrained on the ground, the girl, wearing flowered leggings and a black sweatshirt, asks, 'Can you please get the snow off of me? It's cold.'
'You had your chance,' one officer tells her, while another shouts, 'Get in the car now!'
The investigation comes months after Rochester was rocked by protests over the death of a black man who was suffering a mental health crisis and was suffocated when police pulled a hood over his head last March.
In Friday's incident, Rochester Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson told reporters that the girl 'indicated she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom.'
After the girl tried to run away, officers handcuffed her and attempted to take her to a hospital in a patrol car, Anderson said.
She repeatedly screamed 'I want my dad!' as the officers tried to pull her into the vehicle, the video showed.
'This is your last chance. Otherwise pepper spray is going into your eyeballs,' a female officer tells her, adding, 'I will call your dad.'
Eventually, another officer appears fed up and urges, 'Just spray her at this point.'
The girl then screams and is heard pleading, 'Wipe my eyes, please!'
'Unbelievable,' an officer sighs as the video ends.
At a news conference on Sunday, Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson described the girl as suicidal. She was eventually taken to Rochester General Hospital and later released to her family.
The day after the incident, the police said the girl disobeyed commands to put her feet in the car. An officer was then 'required' to spray an 'irritant' in the handcuffed girl´s face, the department said.
The girl's identity was not released, and the video was blurred to provide anonymity.
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