He said she was knocked unconscious for two minutes and sustained a concussion. She refused medical treatment as she insisted she did not need it, and attempted to cycle away, at which point she was forced off her bike and detained for “non-cooperation”.
Advertisement
Hagerstown Police Chief Victor Brito defended his officers claiming the girl had become “assaultive” and “combative” and would not cooperate with police. 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.
The mother also criticized police for how they treated her after the arrest.
Her lawyer said she was afraid to go with police she did not know.
Brito denied that the girl was slammed against a wall, as the girl and her lawyer contend.
Later, video showed officers trying to persuade the girl to put her feet inside the cruiser and then an officer sprayed through a window. But the police department says it stands by the officer’s actions.
“You let that badge go to your head, man”, the bystander tells the officer.
In the video, the girl is sitting in the backseat of a police vehicle, having an emotional confrontation with an unidentified police officer.
A Maryland police chief says officers used appropriate force in pepper-spraying a 15-year-old girl who wouldn’t cooperate in their investigation after she crashed her bicycle into a moving vehicle. The teen said the spraying had caused her to start choking.
Brito said that officers used the “minimal amount of force necessary” because the outcome would have been worse if a more than 200-pound officer had used physical force to get her into the auto.
As a bystander records the encounter, the teen is forcibly handcuffed and put into a police auto.
Ifill was more direct about the officer who pepper sprayed the girl.
The 15-year-old Maryland girl who was pepper sprayed is shown in a photo posted September 20, 2016, by her attorney, Robin Ficker, on his Facebook page.
Her father did take her after picking her up at the station, and she suffered soreness and sprained muscles. Numerous alleged actions of the officers occurred in this Facebook video, and body cam footage is reportedly on the way, which Ficker says will reveal the rest.
The officer reports to a dispatcher that a “female got pepper sprayed” and the cruiser drives off to the station in Hagerstown, a city of 40,000 about 70 miles west of Baltimore. She said her daughter could have handled the situation better, but wasn’t in the right state of mind.
However, instead of being taken to a hospital, she was taken to the police station and booked into custody, The 15-year-old honor student was charged with disorderly conduct, two counts of second-degree assault, possession of marijuana and failure to obey a traffic device. The matter was referred to the Department of Juvenile Services.
“Officers in this country are placed in hard situations”, Brito said Thursday. “It’s their job to act in the interest in our community.The officers used the appropriate amount of force to detain a juvenile who was not being cooperative”.
“Every time we use a level of force, regardless whether we are justified or not, we lose”, Brito told reporters.
Advertisement
The teen said she was never told why she was being arrested.
