Less than five months after police in Rochester, NY, suffocated a mentally ill man, they have again shown us the ugly brutality of policing.
In police body cam footage (we warn you, it’s sickening), officers drag, then handcuff, then pepper spray a 9-year-old Black girl who is clearly in a state of serious mental distress!
When a young girl needed a social worker, a child therapist, a trained psychologist or maybe just her parents (one of whom she cries out for over and over!), she got instead a crew of police. The impatient and callous looks on their faces tell us that while some simply didn’t care what she was going through, some actually felt aggrieved about the irritation she was giving them – as if they were being victimized by her! At one point, she screamed, “I am a child!”
The severe mental and emotional struggles of this little girl, the fact that police were called to deal with them, and the cruelty with which they treated her all highlight the inhumane priorities of our world. Instead of nurturing childhoods we get trauma, instead of social workers we get police, and instead of kindness we get force.
These are the facts of life under capitalism. So next time you need help, don’t call the police.
