An Rochester police officer is placed on administrative leave Video surfaced on friday A shopkeeper suspected police pepper when he tried to run away with a three-year-old child.
The video was released as the Rochester Police Department remains under investigation over its relationship with black residents – including Daniel Prude, whose September 2020 death while disturbing custody was also captured on video.
The video of the February 22 incident shows a black woman running away from a white police officer accused of robbing a convenience store.
Body-cam footage shows the officer grabbing the woman while another officer shouts the child several feet away.
The incident is being investigated, Rochester police said in a press statement.
“The child was not sprinkled with pepper or injured during the arrest,” the statement said.
Police Chief Cynthia Heriot-Sullivan said the officers involved appeared to follow due process, but added that “some things for me are not as simple as whether a policy was followed or not.”
Rochester’s Police Accountability Board, which was formed in 2019, said it saw similarities between the case and one where a 9-year-old girl was pepper sprayed and then forced to sit in the back of a police vehicle .
“Black Mother was involved in both incidents. Both included black children. Both put black people in crisis. Both involved officers using pepper spray on or around a black child, ”Shani Wilson, chair of the PAB, said on Friday.
So far, the mother, whose name has not been released, has been accused of atrocities and is still in police custody.
With post wires
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