On Sunday, January 31, the Rochester Police Department released body camera footage of officers handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl while responding to a domestic disturbance call on Avenue B on Friday, January 29.

Dr. Seanelle Hawkins, President and CEO of the Urban League of Rochester, issued the following statement in response:

The Urban League of Rochester condemns in the gravest terms the actions of the officers involved in the shameful mistreatment of a young Black girl experiencing a mental health emergency.

Mere months after the tragic death of Daniel Prude in Rochester police custody came to light, we find our city back in the national press for excessive use of force by the police, what Governor Cuomo aptly called a “real police accountability problem.”

The idea that multiple, able-bodied, adult police officers could not easily restrain and transport an unarmed 9-year-old girl without resorting to bodily harm, no matter the circumstances, is unacceptable. As with Mr. Prude, this scared little girl was not seen as a young community member in a mental health crisis, and thus needing mental health support; she was seen as a threat, a suspect to be brought into compliance and submission.

In the body camera footage from Friday afternoon, an officer can be heard chastising the young girl, saying “Stop acting like a child.”

“I am a child,” the girl replies tearfully, as she continues to struggle and ask for her dad. “Just spray her at this point,” an officer says. And so they pepper-sprayed her.

This chilled me and pierced my soul.

These officers clearly commit an adultification bias—the expectation that a child of color should be more capable than a reasonable social standard of development would suggest. In the face of this bias, a terrified 9-year-old child in the middle of a mental health crisis somehow still had more logic and presence of mind than trained law enforcement officials. Why do we continue to allow Black and Brown children to be mistreated and killed by those who have sworn to protect our community? What are our elected officials doing to stop this?

Since the footage of Mr. Prude’s death was released, we have seen the City of Rochester make efforts to address police accountability and structural racism: The police chief and others involved in the handling of Mr. Prude’s case were fired or suspended, and additional mental health and community response training for the police was promised. The joint Commission on Racial and Structural Equity (RASE) with Monroe County was formed, including specific working groups on policing, criminal justice, and mental health services. The Office of Crisis Intervention Services introduced the Person in Crisis (PIC) Team of emergency response social workers to respond to mental health crisis and domestic violence calls instead of the police, just like the calls made about this young girl and about Daniel Prude.

And just last week, the Mayor’s office released the Equity and Recovery Agenda (ERA), outlining Mayor Lovely Warren’s impressive plans for “recovering and building a new era for everyone.” This document describes Warren’s plans for “Reforming our Police Department and Honoring the Life of Daniel Prude,” including “pilot” testing of the aforementioned crisis teams.

Clearly none of this has been enough, as, rather than honoring the life and death of Mr. Prude, Rochester Police continue to replicate their use of excessive force. Our police and our city must do better than forming groups and releasing statements filled with empty promises. We demand change on behalf of our children, and we demand it now.

Mayor Warren stated in a press conference on Monday that suspending the police officers involved in this incident was the severest action permitted by state law and union rules. The day before, the head of the police union, Michael Mazzeo, said that “Those officers and those scenes, they broke no policy. There’s nothing that anyone can say they did that’s inappropriate.”

The problem isn’t that laws or policies were broken: The problem is that those laws and policies themselves are broken. This is why law requires ethics. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it best: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan and the Rochester Police Department, Mr. Mazzeo and the Locust Club union, and Mayor Warren and the City of Rochester are spending time and money on damage control for the times when the people aren’t pulled out of the river before they drown. We implore them to go upstream instead: The river of systemic racism rushes onward too quickly to rely on fishing our babies out of its waters.

Upon securing the pepper-sprayed little girl in their car, one officer remarks “Unbelievable.”

The Urban League wholeheartedly agrees, it is unbelievable:

Unbelievable that we have seen no proof of the police re-training in progress to “truly build the empathy and perspective necessary for fundamental change in […] practices and procedures.” 

Unbelievable that our neighbors in mental health crisis continue to be treated like criminals. 

Unbelievable that a city could continue to so grossly fail its citizens of color, especially at this radical moment in time.

We demand a change. It is past time to interrupt racism in Rochester.

Questions and press inquiries may be directed to wrivera@ulr.org.