Police video shows teen girl pepper-sprayed after bike crash
HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- Police in Maryland have released body-camera video of an officer pepper-spraying a 15-year-old girl in a police cruiser when she refused to put her feet inside.
Hagerstown Police Capt. Paul Kifer has said the white officer who arrested the mixed-race girl had to subdue her with chemical spray to get her into a cruiser for a ride to the police station after her bicycle hit a car Sunday. The video released late Wednesday shows officers grabbing the girl as she rides away and struggling to handcuff her as she screams at the officers not to touch her.
“Get the [expletive] off me, I’m not going nowhere,” the girl is heard saying.
Later, video shows officers trying to persuade the girl to put her feet inside the cruiser.
“You’re gonna get sprayed, put your feet in,” an officer is heard saying.
An officer is seen pepper-spraying her through a window. She was apparently handcuffed at the time. The girl coughs and screams before the car drives off. She can be heard screaming, “I can’t breathe.”
She was charged as a juvenile with assault and disorderly conduct, as well as failure to obey a traffic device and marijuana possession.
Kifer said investigators determined the girl was to blame for the collision. In the video, the car’s driver tells an officer that she rode through a red light and points out several scratches on his car door.