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Over-enforcement in Rochester

Think for a moment about the 9-year-old girls you have known. Any of them seem as though there is the remotest of possibilities they could have been a threat to a fully equipped group of police officers?

Of course not. But for multiple officers in Rochester, N.Y., a 9-year-old girl was either so terrifying that she was restrained on the ground in the snow, handcuffed, shoved into a patrol car and pepper sprayed.

According to the police, who were responding to a report of “family trouble,” the girl was screaming for her father. When they scolded her to “stop acting like a child,” she rightly responded “I am a child.” When they had her restrained on the snowy ground, she asked if someone could “please get the snow off me? It’s cold.” She was told “You had your chance.” Then they pepper sprayed her.

The officers have been suspended, but Rochester’s mayor claims “Unfortunately, state law and union contract prevents me from taking more immediate and serious action.”

Nonsense.

Something is very wrong in Rochester, and no amount of hiding behind the letter of state law or union contracts should be tolerated as outside investigators get to the bottom of it.

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