Hagerstown Maryland Police have released body cam footage of a 15-year-old girl who was pepper sprayed by arresting officers. He says she became assaultive as officers tried to get her into a cruiser for a ride to a police station on Sunday.
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Ficker said his client was pepper sprayed four times in the police vehicle once she was already in handcuffs. The biracial girl, aged fifteen, was charged with several offenses – including two counts of second-degree assault, disorderly conduct, and possession of marijuana – after an enormous ordeal, according to her attorney, Robin Ficker.
Maryland cops assaulted the biracial teen, gassed her, and then took her to the police station to charge her with a litany of bad offences.
Hagerstown Police Capt. Tom Langston said on September 21 that the police department is still trying to figure out what happened three days earlier, notes HeraldMailMedia.com.
Maryland police today defended the restraining and pepper-spraying of a 15-year-old girl they said was not cooperating after a traffic accident, saying that the actions of officers involved an appropriate amount of force. “And she’s going to come over here and fight us when all we want to do is make sure she’s OK”. “Ultimately, we wanted to get her calmed down”. She said she wouldn’t identify herself because she’s a private person. “I saw on social media and other places that there were a number of different misnomers and mistruths that were being characterized regarding this particular incident”, Brito said, explaining why he released the footage.
While the officers had allegedly arrived on the scene to take the girl to the hospital, they began referring to her in criminal terms.
According to Ficker, medical records provided by the girl’s mother show she was arrested for failing to provide police with insurance information.
The family attorney said the girl has a white mother and black father.
“We’re not gonna let her go until she’s released to a parent or guardian”, he told The Daily Beast.
“She was dazed, then she got up and realized she was OK”, Ficker stated. “She got on her bike, started peddling away to go home, and a huge officer grabbed her off her bike without any warning whatsoever from behind”. “I don’t teach them to disrespect adults”, her mom said. The video posted by ABC News begins at the point where the officer wearing the bodycam walking toward the girl, who is with another officer. A statement on the page from the law firm reads, “This little girl, 5 ft”.
“Police told the hospital that the reason she was arrested was not because she was refusing treatment, but because she wouldn’t give insurance information”, Ficker said.
Ficker told The Associated Press that the teen’s father did take her to a hospital after picking her up at the station.
When asked by a reporter if the teen acted appropriately in dealing with the police, the girl’s mother suggested that the situation “could have been handled better (by her daughter)”, but added: “I don’t know that she was even in the right frame of mind”. He says she has sprained muscles, and sore wrists where she was handcuffed.
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On Wednesday, Hagerstown Police Capt. Tom Langston said that his department is trying to piece together what happened.
