Originally published at: Police in Rochester, NY, handcuff and pepper spray 9-year-old girl | Boing Boing
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I live about 20 minutes away from there and i’m not shocked one bit that shit like that happens over there.
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…that the child in question is Black. 
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I firmly believe that cowardice and sadism are two sides of the same coin.
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Police in Rochester, NY, handcuff and pepper spray 9-year-old girl
You need more evidence that the Police should be defunded?
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I don’t have the stomach to actually watch the video; the quoted italicized text on the article made my skin crawl.
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You’re acting like a child."
“I am a child.”
This is a perfect example of how Black girls are treated older and less like a child than white girls.
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Just no words…
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Using less-lethal methods for compliance should be a fireable offence. Nobody there was afraid for their life (except maybe the child), why the fuck do the police think it’s appropriate to use weapons against a fucking child handcuffed in the back of a cruiser? Pathetic cowards all of them.
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Punishing her for failure to comply without hesitation. You know, as one expects of a terrified and brutalized child. Let us not forget, she had just been taken to the ground and handcuffed by 2 grown-ass men! Before you even consider the background events that lead to this child being removed from her home in the first place. Terrified, abused and brutalized, and scared to death. Yeah, expecting unquestioning oobedience is a bit of a stretch here. On the other hand, ACAB, so pretty much par for the course.
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Today’s example of how our ‘authority’ figures lose all respect for life; brought to you by the Rochester PD.
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I’m sure the police faced an imminent threat, the kid was probably all hopped up on Kit Kats and Pepsi.
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Father of two girls about that age (note: white privilege).
You pepper spray my girls for any fucking reason, you’re looking at a court settlement that will set you department back big-time. No more big tanks and assault rifle toys because you’re gonna be out of money. Pepper spray guns were supposed to replace guns dealing in lead. They were never supposed to be “gun-light” and used on kids. And if you are a fucking coward who abuses a kiddo in this manner for misbehaving, you need to be fired. There should be no “administrative leave”. Fired and prosecuted. WTF cops. Clean your house.
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Didn’t watch the video; didn’t need to in order to figure out the skin color of the people involved.
WTF are they handcuffing a 9 year old, much less pepper-spraying her?
This sort of shite stopped surprising me years ago, but you would think that with cameras being everywhere, the cops would think about their actions…
Needless to say, those cops need to be fired & the inevitable lawsuits paid for by the Police Union.
Hit 'em where it hurts.
But, ‘defunding the police’ is the wrong way to go. It is a non-starter for the Fascist contingent in this country… so…
Let’s call it ‘supplementing the police’ and use some cadet classes to train mental health workers to be called in for situations like this, and in the meantime, weed out the bully-boys in the department. One way to do that is to make carrying a gun an earned privilege, after, say, 5 years on the force with no complaints from the public. We have all seen stats that show a minority of cops generate the majority of complaints, so this might keep 'em from wanting to be a cop in the first place.
Police Unions need to be outlawed; they have far too much power in keeping those so-called Bad Apples employed.
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There is no way I am watching that video. I still need to sleep at night.
Why TF were police sent to respond to trouble with a 9 year old girl. This criminalization of children’s behavior is horrible. Children throw fits, they have trouble, give them time off, talk to them and tell them it will be OK, let them scream. Don’t call the cops. I’m gutted right now.
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Already seen it. The video is in all the TV news.
Really, pepper spray a nine year old girl? Rochester was known as the home of Kodak. Now is known for the cops sadistic on kids.
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when i still taught at an intermediate campus, grades 4-6, we would occasionally get student who were under the special ed. umbrella as “emotionally disturbed” and were at risk of losing control of themselves to the point that they could be a hazard to other students or to the teachers. the teachers and aides who were in the proximity of students like that were heavily trained in deescalation techniques and in safe methods of “takedowns” so that if deescalation didn’t resolve an emotional crisis and the student became violent despite the efforts of the adults they could could quickly and safely place the student into a restraint hold requiring the minimum of effort and the minimum of violence. the adults would then maintain the restraint until either the student calmed down or a parent or guardian could be brought in to help resolve the immediate situation.
i went through 12 hours of such training and we practiced on each other. it amazed me at how little effort was required to take down and restrain another person. i never had to use a takedown in 20 years at that campus, primarily because the deescalation techniques they taught alongside the restraint methods proved to be quite effective. i witnessed two incidents in which other teachers performed a takedown and restraint following an unsuccessful effort to deescalate. i cannot overemphasize how little effort or violence it required.
having watched the video in the linked article a couple of times i can tell you the biggest difference between this case and what i witnessed at school was that in every instance i saw at school, the teachers had high regard for the humanity of the students with whom they dealt and even in the midst of a potentially violent conflict maintained empathy for the student. this video is shameful.
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Thank you for sharing that. I was wondering about the experiences of teachers. A few years ago, there were relatively frequent stories in the local paper about kids having to be restrained in school. It was something new to me. But there’s still a lot of lead paint in the low income housing around here, so maybe that’s part of it? (We’re working on it!) There was always a lot of scrutiny placed on the teachers, sometimes to the point of seeming ridiculous. A kid is going utterly berserk and trashing the computer lab, it seems like it’d be okay to do the bear hug* if you can’t settle them down verbally.
It’s insane to think of how much we already ask of our teachers, and how much they do for the community every single day. And then think of how much we don’t expect of our law enforcement, and how much they don’t do for the community. Every single day. Then compare budgets.
*i know it’s more complicated than that, but I mean a safe restraint.
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Two words.
Anne Frank.
Not even the children are safe.
Actually a “bear hug” is exactly what we use for toddlers through early school age if we have to restrain kids for shots. It is amazing how much kids will calm down if they are approached in a calm, understanding and loving fashion. Granted, it probably helps that I am a rather large man, but honestly, the amount of force is always nil to minimal. Once they are embraced, they generally kind of melt into it. I usually get hugs and high 5’s afterward, along with looks from parents that I interpret as “what wizardry was that?”
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