Cops Pepper-Spray Girl Who Fell Off Bike

[elleblue]

When a teenage girl riding her bike collided with a car, cops didn’t simply take her to the hospital but instead handcuffed her, pepper sprayed her, and threw her in the back of their squad car.

A bystander’s cell phone footage shows the 15-year-old girl from Hagerstown, Maryland being loaded into a police car Sunday. At this point the girl, a minor whose name is being withheld, ask to speak with “Zack,” an officer she says is black, unlike her arresting officers who are white. Then, while the girl is handcuffed in the back of the car, police are seen firing pepper spray at her through the window.

“I can’t breathe!” the girl screams.

Instead of taking the girl to the hospital like they initially told her, police took her to the police station for interrogation. But her lawyer said she never should have been in the squad car in the first place.

“She was flipped over in the air, came down hard on the pavement, was motionless there for at least 30 seconds,” attorney Robin Ficker told The Daily Beast. “Then she recovered, woke up and the ambulance came. She did not want to go with the strangers in the ambulance, she wanted to go to her home nearby. She got on her bike, started peddling away to go home, and a huge officer grabbed her off her bike without any warning whatsoever from behind.”
Body camera footage released by the Hagerstown Police shows the girl refusing to go with polic before an officer grabs her backpack. Then she is handcuffed and pushed against a brick wall while bystanders gather. “You let that badge go to your head,” one onlooker tells an officer.

While the officers had allegedly arrived on the scene to take the girl to the hospital, they began referring to her in criminal terms.
“We’re detaining you for incooperation with an investigation,” one officer says while the girl is forcibly cuffed.
Hagerstown Police told The Daily Beast that they were simultaneously investigating the girl’s bike crash while attempting to take her to the hospital.

“The reason she was placed in custody, is first and foremost we were investigating an accident she was involved in,” Hagerstown Police Captain Paul Kifer told The Daily Beast. “She attempted to leave on a bicycle … she refused to give ay info on who she was.”

Even if the officers had wanted to take her to the hospital, they had no legal grounds for doing so forcibly, Ficker said.

“They said ‘you have to come in, you can’t refuse treatment.’ Well there’s no Maryland law that says you can’t refuse treatment,” he told The Daily Beast. “They certainly don’t arrest every Jehovah’s Witness that refuses treatment. There’s no law that says you can’t refuse treatment.”  link

[Skyesthelimit1212]

WTF is going on in US police departments?!?!?!?! Are they just fucking handing out badges in cracker jack boxes as prizes, are they handing out tests to see which cadets are the racists and hiring only them???

[pixy0stix]

I'll be back to reply when I calm down.

[isabel]

A friend posted this on fb yesterday. The thing that really strikes me is that the cop is explaining the a bystander that they are holding her because she could have a brain injury and not know it, but instead of calling an ambulance or driving her to the hospital, they take her to the police station to book her. What the fuck is that bullshit!? So, you're lying to bystanders to make it look like you're trying to help her when the reality of the situation is that you're fucking around with a victim? Seriously. WHAT THE FUCK?

[mbcdefg]

So I'm guessing their pride was hurt because a young girl refused to obey them, and then they had to teach her a lesson. Right? Am I close?

Assholes. 

[tiramisu]

Fuck everything. All of them. All of it.

[jojoandleo]

Why the fuck do they need her parents?

[pixy0stix]

Nope. Still mad.

[malu]

Sept 22, 2016 14:51:53 GMT -5 isabel said:

So, you're lying to bystanders to make it look like you're trying to help her when the reality of the situation is that you're fucking around with a victim? Seriously. WHAT THE FUCK?

Considering that they lied to the young girl about how she had to go with them without a choice, lying to a bystander doesn't surprise me.  This is horrifying.

[lulu13]

I cannot formulate a response.

[jene]

I just don't understand what the fuck is going on anymore

[ijack]

JFC. I can't do this anymore.

[secretlyevil]

I can't even formulate a response.

[secretlyevil]

Sept 22, 2016 15:05:14 GMT -5 lulu13 said:

I cannot formulate a response.

I guess we both had the same response.

[tiki]

I do not understand why police are ever allowed to use a weapon when no one is in danger of being hurt. There is no possible way to justify pepper spraying a teenage girl while she is handcuffed and in the back of a police car.

[stephogirl]

My mama bear rage is at peak level right now...

[picksthemusic]

I cannot with this bullshit anymore.

[josieposy]

I hope mom and dad are lawyering up.

ETA: Derp. I see that she did. Good!

[Velvetshady]

Yep, no, cops not the problem. It's just people not following their orders.



FUCK

[was5]

That was heartbreaking. The police need to do better. Pick better people, provide better training, create more accountability.

[orangello]

I would be INCENSED if I was her parents. This is utterly ridiculous.

[bernsteincat]

If certain officers can't be relied upon to be calm when dealing with a teenage girl, there is no hope for them when they are dealing with grown adults.

[atexan]

WHAT
IN
THE
ACTUAL
FUCK


I mean, I guess she's "lucky" that she's a girl because if she'd been a black boy that wouldn't have been pepper spray. It is fucking sad as hell that that's where my mind went.

CHRIST

THIS IS A CHILD. AN INNOCENT CHILD WHO MOST LIKELY HAD A CONCUSSION.

WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN THE POINT OF HAVING POLICE ANYMORE.

[Skyesthelimit1212]

Sept 22, 2016 15:24:41 GMT -5 was5 said:

That was heartbreaking. The police need to do better. Pick better people, provide better training, create more accountability.

I'm sorry but this has nothing to do with training, you don't need to be trained not to shoot someone that's not threatening you, you don't need to be trained to not be hostile to a human being, esp a teenager who has just been an freaking accident. This right here is lack of common sense, decency, and just plain being a human being.  This girl wasn't threatening, she wasn't combative, she was scared, rightfully so, of an adult who you are raised to respect, because he's the police, and she's being treating as if she's done something criminal and not worth helping.

[lulu13]

She fucking told them she has OCD!!! She was obviously completely freaked out by their touch!!

Sue their pants off!

[Miss Phryne Fisher]

Literally everything else aside, can kids refuse to be seen by ambulance if they are possibly injured and involved in an accident? Lets say she wasn't trying to go away on her bike, or walk away, just didn't want to be seen. Is it just a "follow the girl home" type thing?

(I MEAN IT WHEN I SAY EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE...it is obvious everything else they did was insane)

[lingome]

Sept 22, 2016 15:33:03 GMT -5 Skyesthelimit1212 said:

Sept 22, 2016 15:24:41 GMT -5 was5 said:

That was heartbreaking. The police need to do better. Pick better people, provide better training, create more accountability.

I'm sorry but this has nothing to do with training, you don't need to be trained not to shoot someone that's not threatening you, you don't need to be trained to not be hostile to a human being, esp a teenager who has just been an freaking accident. This right here is lack of common sense, decency, and just plain being a human being.  This girl wasn't threatening, she wasn't combative, she was scared, rightfully so, of an adult who you are raised to respect, because he's the police, and she's being treating as if she's done something criminal and not worth helping.

Training absolutely comes into play. How can it not? That doesn't mean that racism or being a crappy person doesn't happen and influence behavior. But had these officers had a better and specific protocol to follow, and perhaps training on how to deal with someone who may have needed help, then this may have not gone down this way. 
ETA: I am not excusing their behavior due to bad training. The pepper spraying part especially is deplorable. Just pointing out that proper training (even in the way of helping officers recognize their own biases) might be able to help create better standards and overcome these situations. 

[DesertMoon]

[cookiemdough]

Sept 22, 2016 15:37:05 GMT -5 Miss Phryne Fisher said:

Literally everything else aside, can kids refuse to be seen by ambulance if they are possibly injured and involved in an accident? Lets say she wasn't trying to go away on her bike, or walk away, just didn't want to be seen. Is it just a "follow the girl home" type thing?

(I MEAN IT WHEN I SAY EVERYTHING ELSE ASIDE...it is obvious everything else they did was insane)

I don't know. But given they sprayed her I can't believe they really thought she was too hurt.

[AJL]

From what I could see on the cop cam video, every person of "authority" she came in contact with was a large, white, man. The cops I could see all still had their sunglasses on. No one spoke to her with kindness or softly. They were gruff and intimidating. I'm a 38 year old woman and the fact that there were only men at the scene would be enough to terrify me and cause a panic attack if I had just been clipped by a car. So many things are wrong with that scenario and I hope this girl and her family sue the shit out of those officers and the PD.