Police in the United States have said they were justified in arresting and pepper-spraying a 15-year-old girl who didn’t want to go to hospital after she was hit by a vehicle.
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The video begins with body-worn camera footage from the first officer on the scene.
Officers from the Hagerstown Police Department responded to the scene of an accident Sunday afternoon after the girl, whose identity has not been released, reportedly hit a auto with her bicycle.
Brito said Thursday that his officers acted in accordance with department policies and procedures when dealing with a combative teen girl who was later pepper sprayed on Sunday. Instead, the girl was transported to the police station, where she was interrogated and charged with disorderly conduct, two counts of second degree assault, possession of marijuana and failure to obey a traffic device.
The matter has been referred to by the Department of Juvenile Services, so claims Hagerstown Police Capt. Tom Langston, who also added that they are now reviewing the front cam video of the approach and arrest.
Her family plans on speaking in a press conference Thursday afternoon. “Stop.” “Get the f– off of me”, she tells them.
Ficker posted on social media a cellphone video of the arrest that shows the screaming girl being placed in the back seat of the cruiser with her arms behind her, apparently restrained. The officer wearing the bodycam places his hand on her shoulder, saying that they’re “trying to help” her. She asked for an officer friend of hers to be contacted, but the officer sprayed her instead.
According to police, the girl was not cooperating with authorities who were trying to question her about what had happened, and she refused to cooperate when they were trying to find a parent to authorize her refusal of medical treatment, because she was a minor.
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.
The police press release said the girl crashed her bike into a moving vehicle, and was at a fault. A second officer’s recording then shows her continuing to resist as they put her in the cruiser. “She could die later … all we want to do is make sure she’s okay”. Another tells other officers, “I’ll just spray her if you want to step back”. Brito said that because she was part of the traffic investigation, she was not allowed to leave the scene.
A kick turns off one officer’s camera, though footage released Wednesday night also includes a first-person view of another officer him using pepper spray as the distraught teen presses her feet against the auto door. The officers “recognized the fact that she was a juvenile” and tried to use their “best adult tone to calm the situation down”, he said.
“You don’t take a 15-year-old child, and put them in handcuffs, and shut a door, and mace them four times”, said the girl’s mother.
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Demonstrators protest police treatment of a 15-year-old girl who was pepper-sprayed during an arrest Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016 in Hagerstown, Md.
