In the city of Rochester, New York, another case of police violence causes outrage. A video recording that became known on Friday (local time) shows how police officers hold an African-American woman on the floor with a child and treat her with pepper spray. The police had previously stopped the woman on a snow-covered street and accused of stealing something from a nearby shop.
–
The woman denies the allegations and even empties her pocket to prove it. When the police refuse to let her go, the woman pulls herself away with her three-year-old child in her arms and tries to run away. The police catch up with them and push them to the ground. When the woman gets up and tries to reach for her screaming daughter, the police spray her pepper spray on her face and pull her back to the ground. According to a local newspaper report, the three-year-old was not directly hit by pepper spray in the February 22nd incident.
Not the first incident in Rochester
Several police brutality cases had occurred in Rochester in the recent past. In March 2020, the African American Daniel Prude was suffocated during an arrest. And in February of this year, officials also used pepper spray on a nine-year-old girl after she refused to get into a police car. Both cases had personal consequences.
–
