‘You did it to yourself hun’: New footage emerges of NY police pepper spraying nine-year-old girl

A 9-year-old Black girl is handcuffed in custody in a cruiser after police used pepper spray on her as she screamed for her father

Credit: Rochester Police Department 

The officers have since been suspended and an investigation is set to take place.

Fury has been reignited over what observers call the latest example of law enforcement mistreatment of black people in the United States.

It follows a new reckoning on police brutality and racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s death last May, which sparked worldwide protests. 

Black children are six times more likely to die from police gunfire than white children, a study published in the journal Pediatrics found. 

"Black children have never been given their opportunity to be children," said Kristin Henning, law professor and director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law.

They are usually viewed as being older than their white counterparts, according to research, meaning they are often viewed as being more threatening.

"Black children have really been seen as older, more culpable, less amenable to rehabilitation and less worthy of the Western notions of innocence and the Western notions of childhood," Professor Henning said.

Newly released police body camera video captured the 9-year-old girl's distressing wait for an ambulance

Credit: Rochester Police Department 

At an hour and a half long, the footage shows much more of the incident than the 11-minute clip first released.

Video recorded by body cameras begins with a woman’s accusation that her boyfriend has driven off in her truck. 

The pregnant woman adds that he is abusive and her suicidal daughter had threatened to hurt her. She asks for mental health services to help. 

After the girl runs down the street the girl’s mother moves to hit her as she cries and screams.

“Wait, can you please go help my mom?” the 9-year-old shouts. “She’s pregnant.”

The incident then begins to heat up. Clips released Thursday also show an ambulance arriving for the girl.

Elba Pope, the girl’s mother, said the white officers would have approached a white child differently. 

"Had they looked at her as if she was one of their children, they wouldn’t have pepper sprayed her," she said.

Professor Henning agreed: "This is where the question of race comes into play.

“If that child had looked like one of their little girls, looked like the little child that they tucked into bed, it is far less likely that they would have done that."