Officers with the Hagerstown Police Department responded to a reported collision involving a vehicle and a bicycle at Randolph and N. Locust Streets at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday, where the driver of the auto told police that a teenage girl hit his auto and attempted to leave, refusing medical attention at the scene.
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The girl and her mother spoke to reporters Thursday outside Hagerstown police headquarters while about 100 people demonstrated nearby, demanding accountability.
He then reaches over the open door and uses his pepper spray through a crack in the auto window. She says she wouldn’t identify herself because she’s a private person. “The child was knocked unconscious”.
Her lawyer said she was sprayed four times, while the police chief said it was just once.
She was later taken to the hospital by her father, where she was diagnosed with a possible concussion and other injuries, Ficker said.
Vision of the incident shows the girl screaming out as an officer repeatedly tells her to “stop” as she is pepper-sprayed to the face.
Charges against the girl include disorderly conduct, two counts of second-degree assault, possession of marijuana and failure to obey a traffic device.
Kifer denied that the girl was slammed against a wall; it’s not clear from the police video.
“Get off of me!” the girl cried repeatedly, as she struggled with the officer for several minutes before two cops lifted her up and put her in the back of a police vehicle. Then she is handcuffed and pushed against a brick wall while bystanders gather.
According to Ficker, the teen got back on her bike and an officer grabbed her and held her tightly as another officer put her in handcuffs.
“All we want to do is make sure she’s OK”, one officer tells a concerned bystander.
“I was confused as to what was going on” during the encounter, the girl said Thursday during an appearance with her attorney. The girl told the paramedics that she was fine and didn’t need help, and that’s when police showed up.
“And number three, you’ve got police chiefs who don’t know what’s happening, and that’s what we have in Hagerstown”.
The girl then sits on the ground and doesn’t respond as police ask for her name.
The girl can be heard yelling “get off of me!” repeatedly and struggling with the officer for several minutes, before two cops lifted her up and put her in the back of a police vehicle.
The cops told her they wanted to contact her parents, but she wouldn’t give them any information. She refuses to help them, saying she will get in trouble.
During the struggle, the girl kicks the camera and the video stops.
“You’re gonna get sprayed, put your feet in”, an officer is heard saying.
“I got a sprayer”. Moments later, the cop sprays her through the partly open window, causing the girl to shriek in pain.
A police spokesman says several officers involved in the pepper-spray arrest of a 15-year-old girl remain on duty while the department investigates. The incident happened Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 21) when a man claimed the teen rode through a red light and hit his vehicle.
The teen can be seen resisting arrest in the video.
“This little girl, 5 ft”. In the footage, the girl refuses questioning and attempts to cycle away from officers who then pull her off the bike by her backpack and forcibly handcuff her hands behind her back. Her father later took her to the hospital, where the “only treatment she got (from police) was slamming, abuse and Mace”, Ficker said.
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