A video showing police officers handcuffing and using pepper spray against a nine-year-old African American girl in the throes of a psychiatric crisis looks set to spark new controversy in the US over police violence against African American citizens.
The incident took place in Rochester, a city in the State of New York that was the scene last March of another event that caused a wave of protests: the death of Daniel Prude, an African American also with mental problems, who was held to forcibly landed by some policemen who had covered his head with a hood after the man had spat at them claiming to have Covid.
The images relating to the new episode, taken by the same agents and disseminated by the police, concern a nine-year-old girl who, according to the police, was in a state of alteration and threatened to kill her mother and then commit suicide.
The video shows cops handcuffing her and using stinging spray against her trying to get her into a police car.
The officers said they were "forced" to use these systems to ensure the child's own safety.
But Rochester's African-American mayor, Lovely Warren, condemned the use of force against a child, heralding an internal investigation.
"I am the mother of a 10 year old girl myself - said Warren - and as a mother I say that this video is not something we want to see".
