Cops Caught on Video Pepper-Spraying a Black Mom in Front of Her Crying Toddler

In yet another controversial incident involving cops in Rochester, New York, using force on Black people, a police officer pepper-sprayed a mother in front of her crying toddler, according to newly-released footage from the embattled police department.

An officer then ripped the child away from the woman.

The troubling video from the February incident—which starts with the mother being approached on the sidewalk and questioned over an alleged theft at a local Rite Aid—is the latest in a string of widely scrutinized police encounters in New York’s third-most populous city.

The encounter with the mother and her child comes just weeks after another Rochester police officer pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old Black girl while responding to a report of “family trouble.” The girl had disobeyed commands and was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. And in another case that drew national attention, Daniel Prude, a Black man, died of suffocation days after he was forcibly restrained by Rochester police while experiencing a mental health crisis last year. 

In a statement to the Democrat and Chronicle about the most recent incident, local City Council President Loretta Scott said she was “deeply disheartened that we are dealing with yet another police/civilian non-violent encounter in our community that could have and should have been handled differently.” Two of the officers involved in the February encounter with the mother and daughter were also present during the incident with the 9-year-old, the Democrat and Chronicle reported.

Video from the Feb. 22 incident with the mother and child shows the interaction was tense from the start. An officer hopped out of their patrol vehicle and asked the woman holding her child, “Come on, they said you stole, what’d you steal?” according to nearly two hours of body-worn camera and surveillance footage shared to the police department’s YouTube page.

“Tell me what you took. Tell me the truth,” the officer said. “I don’t have time for B.S., so you better be quick with me.”

The woman set her child down and showed the officer her purse and pulled out some of the items in it.

“I promise, on God, I stole nothing,” the woman said. 

There was no description of the items she had allegedly taken, so the officer told the woman to get in his car while police checked with the store. Instead, she ran. 

“I did not do anything,” she said after the officer caught up with her outside a local takeout joint.

“Put the kid down,” the officer shouted as the child screamed and wept.

The officer then yelled at the woman to turn around and put her arms behind her back so she could be handcuffed. Nearby surveillance video showed that she was taken to the ground as her child watched.

A second officer showed up and grabbed the toddler while the woman was on the ground. 

After the mother got up and reached for her kid, an officer aimed their pepper-spray at her face. She was taken to the ground yet again, still holding the child’s hand, before one of the officers separated them.

Police later told a bystander filming the scene to “Shut the hell up and get out of here,” Rochester Police Accountability Board Chair Shani Wilson said in a Friday press conference. 

At one point, an officer can also be heard in the video asking a colleague as he tried to calm the toddler, “Can you block—can you put your car up here? Because it doesn’t look good that I have to restrain, like, a 3-year-old.” 

“It’s OK, it’s OK. Can I get a hug?” the officer asked the girl as she sobbed. “You’re OK, dear.” 

The inconsolable child responded, “Mommy! Mommy!” 

At one point, an officer read a book to the child while they were in a squad car with their mother, body camera footage shows.

The toddler was later taken away by her grandmother. 

“The Police Accountability Board is disturbed by what it has seen,” Wilson said of the footage Friday, noting parallels between the incident with the toddler last month and the 9-year-old girl in January.

“Both incidents involved Black mothers, both involved Black children, both involved Black people obviously in crisis, both involved officers using pepper spray on or around a Black child,” Wilson said. 

Police have said the toddler from the February encounter was not injured or hit with pepper spray, according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. The child’s mother was later charged with trespassing and given an appearance ticket because she had allegedly knocked items off a store shelf and refused to leave, the newspaper reported.

The arresting officer from the February incident has been placed on administrative duty while an investigation takes place, according to Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The Rochester Police Department did not immediately respond to VICE News’ request for comment.