Video shows Rochester, New York, officer pepper-spraying mom with toddler

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Police again face questions over officers' use of pepper spray after spraying the irritant into the face of a woman holding the hand of her 3-year-old child.

Video released Friday details the encounter Feb. 22, less than one moth after police officers pepper-sprayed a handcuffed 9-year-old girl.

Both incidents involve police interactions with Black women and their children.

On Feb. 22, an officer responded to a report of a theft at a Rite Aid. Police encountered the woman and child on a sidewalk.

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The woman denied stealing anything, opening and partially emptying her purse to show the officer. She then ran away, carrying the child, when the officer's attention was diverted, according to police body camera footage. She was caught across the street, separated from the child and taken to the ground.

The child was screaming, and as the woman got up and grabbed for her daughter, she was sprayed and taken down a second time. A brief, near tug-of-war occurred over the child before the woman released her grip.

"Stop. Oh my God, what is wrong with her?" the officer holding the child said of the mother.

The child was not sprayed, but officials viewing the footage said she could have been exposed and questioned how police dealt with the child.

"These disturbing incidents prove that the Rochester Police Department needs to fundamentally change its organizational culture," read a statement from the city's Police Accountability Board. "These incidents also affirm our community's call to fundamentally reimagine public safety."

The woman was charged with trespassing and given a court appearance ticket, "as the store confirmed she knocked a number of items off of the shelf and refused repeated requests to leave," interim Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan wrote in a March 4 email to City Council President Loretta Scott.

Details of the case were made public by the Police Accountability Board on Friday at a news conference. As that concluded, police released the video footage and a statement that one officer had been placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

"During the investigation and interaction between the officer and the female, a struggle ensued and the female was pepper sprayed and arrested," the RPD statement read. "While this was taking place, her young child was on scene and with her. The child was not pepper sprayed or injured during the arrest.

In a statement, Mayor Lovely Warren – who viewed the footage Feb. 23, according to a spokesman – called the footage "disturbing." The administration expects to deliver its updated police plan to City Council next week, she said, and Herriott-Sullivan, "is working to make sweeping, but necessary, policy and procedure changes along with mandatory training for officers regarding racism and implicit bias."

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Warren reiterated her push for changes in state law that would allow the city to immediately terminate officers for cause: "Change will not come until we have the ability to fully hold our officers accountable when they violate the public's trust.”

The Democrat and Chronicle, part of the USA TODAY Network, confirmed that City Council members had access to unredacted footage since Tuesday. Scott received the video Feb. 23.

The D&C contacted seven city councilors requesting comment. Three said they had not watched the footage, and another declined comment.

The footage runs one hour, 48 minutes minutes. It was provided to Scott as 20 different video files from the perspective of six officers, according to an email chain.

City Council member Malik Evans said after watching some of the video that it was clear the department needs a better way to deal with the children of people being detained. He had not seen footage of the woman being pepper sprayed. Multiple videos were shared without context, he said, making it difficult to quickly grasp how events unfolded.

City Council member Mary Lupien said the incident is more proof that the system of policing is irreparably broken and needs to be reconstructed.

What the video shows

The encounter begins just after 4:30 p.m., and the entirety of the interaction lasts little more than a half-hour until the child is handed over to her grandmother. For a time, the officers placed the child in the back of the squad car with her mother, and an officer brought her books and read to her from "The Princess and The Frog."

More than once, an officer asked about calling the Family and Crisis Intervention Team (FACIT) to the scene, but another officer responded, "They haven't even logged in yet." The footage viewed by the PAB doesn't show any crisis team members arriving before the woman is driven away.

"As we all know from (earlier) protests, pepper spray goes everywhere immediately, so this child was exposed to the gas," Lupien said after reviewing the footage. The mother maintained a grip on her daughter's hand, while an officer held her other arm. The officer was "pulling" at the child, so "she was suspended between two people," Lupien said.

A second officer "karate chops" the mom's wrist to break her hold, Lupien said. On the ground, an officer "puts his knee on her back with his whole body weight to get her handcuffed," Lupien said, "all while the child was watching."

Another video depicts an officer restraining the child while the mother is in a police patrol vehicle.

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"It's really similar to the incident with the 9-year-old," Lupien said. "'What's your name? Tell me your name, dear. Your mom's OK. What's your name?' officers repeatedly asked her. He must've said it 50 times. Really, that's how you calm down a child?

"At one point, he says, 'Can you pull your car over here, because it looks bad that I'm restraining a 3-year-old?'"

Officers confronted a bystander filming the incident after the mother was placed in the back of a police car, the PAB said. The child was "crying inconsolably and screaming for her mother," the PAB said.

Role of bystanders

The PAB said it was made aware of the incident after video shot by a bystander surfaced on social media.

"The community has played such a huge role in getting this information out, in both instances," board member Danielle Tucker said. "At times, I don't think the community understands the importance that they play in getting this information out. Learning about this through Facebook, seeing this on Facebook from community activists, it's kind of disturbing, because you want to see it from them, but you also think the information should be brought to the board's attention another way."

The board, which maintains subpoena power according to the city charter, said it requested information from the city and police about the incident.

"These same policies, practices, and procedures are at issue in the videos we saw last night," the PAB said. For the past month, the board has asked for written manuals and training documents related to the use of pepper spray, the handling of children and people in crisis, it said in a statement. It requested the full disciplinary and training histories of the officers involved.

"The City has never provided us with this information or a host of other materials we requested," the PAB said. "If the City had done otherwise, our investigation and any resulting proposals for change may have prevented this incident from happening."

The board said it is unclear what the policy is, because it hasn't been able to review those policies.

“We believe that had we had an opportunity to speak with police officers, talk about some of the culture, cultural changes that need to be made, and the compassion and concern that they need when they are addressing people in the community, it would’ve helped," board member Arlene Brown said. "It possibly made them aware of some of the things they’re doing when they’re interacting people that may have become the norm. They may see how the community sees how they are addressing things.”

Follow Will Cleveland on Twitter @willcleveland13.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester, New York, officer pepper-sprays mom with toddler: Video