A body camera video showing a Rochester police officer pepper spraying a mother with a child late last month is “disturbing,” the city’s mayor said in a statement.
A statement from the Rochester Police Department said that on Feb. 22, officers responded to a call of an alleged female shoplifter “who was arguing with store employees and refusing to leave.”
Body camera video shows an officer talking to a woman with her child while she shows the contents of her purse, pulling out a loose diaper and saying she didn’t take anything from the drug store. When the officer tells her he is going to check with store employees, but she has to stay with him, she takes off running with her child. In the video, police blurred the face of the child.
An officer chases her down, puts her on the ground and attempts to handcuff her as she cries, “I did not steal anything,” and the child wails in the background.
The woman was pepper sprayed during the arrest, according to a statement from Rochester police.
The child was not pepper sprayed or injured, police said. The woman was charged with trespassing.
Interim Rochester Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan said Friday, “You’ll see where the mother and child are actually grasping each other.”
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SOURCE: NBC News, Elisha Fieldstadt
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