9 Year Old Pepper Sprayed By NY Police

Yet another example of the disgusting behavior of police.

Once again confirming why we need to defund the police and focus funds instead on community outreach.

A 9 year old pepper sprayed in New York over the weekend:

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Shortly before Rochester police used pepper spray on a handcuffed 9-year-old girl, an officer chided her by saying she was "acting like a child."

"I am a child," the girl replied.

According to children's health advocates, that is exactly the point. Several Rochester experts said officers clearly should have taken the girl's age and emotional state into account before using pepper spray on her —  if police officers had to be there at all.

"There was a lot going on for this child," Tharaha Thavakumar, a school-based therapist at Genesee Mental Health Center, said Monday. "The biggest thing … is to understand the kid is in trauma, and (has) a fight-or-flight mindset."

Rochester police department personnel were called to the girl's house on Avenue B Friday afternoon for a complex situation involving a possible stolen vehicle. The girl's mother told police she was afraid the girl would hurt herself or someone else and requested that she be handcuffed, according to police.

Initially an officer asked: "What is going on? How can I help?", but the arrival of the girl's mother agitated her and she repeatedly cried out for her father. The weather was frigid and officers expressed concern about the child getting hypothermic at several points, the video shows.

One attending female officer attempted to connect with the child by finding out her name and did tell her she would go find her father, who was not at the scene.

After a protracted period where police unsuccessfully tried to get the now handcuffed child's feet wholly inside a police vehicle and shut the passenger door, an attending officer said "Just spray her at this point." 

"Having her legs out of the car probably meant she wasn’t feeling super-safe having the door closed on her," said Alexandria Hubbell, a school coordinator for the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at Dr. Charles Lunsford School 19.

Hubbell helps both students and staff with de-escalation strategies. One of the first things she noticed in the video was the number of people on the scene.

"For de-escalation I try to subtract as many unnecessary things in possible, and in that case I saw them adding people," she said. "It turns into basically an audience, and you start to do whatever you think the audience expects."

Hanif Abdul-Wahid of the local Black Agenda Group concurred with Thavakumar that it was vital to recognize the girl's traumatized state of mind.

"Most folks can see the trauma in the little girl; she’s asking for her father," he said. "And if someone had said, 'We’re going to get you to your father and make things all right,' that would have made things better." (The BWC video showed a female officer attending say she would try and locate the girl's father.)

The proper approach, the experts said, would have been to exhibit greater patience and attempt to make some personal connection with the child rather than resorting to force.

An officer likely would have done better with more of a one-on-one conversation, responding to the girl's expressed needs and trying to understand her perspective.

The city's new Person in Crisis team presumably would have been better versed in that sort of approach. It was not summoned, however, because the initial call to police included other issues, including a possible vehicle theft.

Some of the nine officers were suspended Monday afternoon on full pay, subject to the outcome of an internal investigation.  

"I’m not going to stand here and tell you that for a 9-year-old to have to be pepper-sprayed is OK," Interim Police Chief Cynthia Harriott-Sullivan said.

Locust Club President Michael Mazzeo said Sunday it was inappropriate to blame the officers involved. Instead, he said, it was an issue of faulty or lacking city protocols. 

Abdul-Wahid agreed with him — at least to a point.

"We’re sort of setting up the officers to fail," he said. "Police officers are not trained for that. ... It’s a reflection on our community that when folks are in this type of trouble, there’s no resources available to them."

"After viewing the videos released this weekend, we are all witness not only to a little girl in profound crisis and a family in the throes of interpersonal violence, but also to a community that is overwhelmed by toxic stress," said Deb Rosen, executive director of Bivona Child Advocacy Center. "These concentric rings of trauma must be met with compassion, empathy and unconditional support."

“That child deserved to be treated as a child, as an innocent,” Rosen said. “She deserved to be reassured that she would see her father soon, the one thing she repeatedly asked for. She deserved patience, to be talked to at eye level, called by her name. These are the elements of human communication that we refer to as “de-escalation” and they are to be expected when adults engage with children.”

What is clear in the video, Rosen said, is that this child was caught up in a biological response beyond her control. To expect a 9-year-old to be able to overcome that biological response for the sake of compliance demonstrates a lack of understanding. A mental health professional surely would have allowed for a different response, Rosen said.

“We see many children at Bivona who have endured multiple traumas, and we know that with the right help, healing is possible,” Rosen said. “This is our wish for this child, her family, and her community.”

(https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/02/9-year-old-pepper-sprayed-police-what-should-have-been-done-instead/4351586001/)