Rochester police criticized by accountability board after a Black mom was pepper-sprayed in front of her 3-year-old child

• Rochester police are investigating an incident where an officer pepper-sprayed a Black mother in front of her child.
• Body camera footage released by police shows the officer questioning the woman about what she stole.
• The woman has been charged with trespassing and given an appearance ticket, according to police.

Rochester police are investigating a recent incident where an officer pepper-sprayed a Black mother in front of her child during an arrest.

Police were responding to a call of a woman shoplifting on February 22 and the woman who was pepper-sprayed matched the description, CNN reported.

Body camera footage released by police shows the officer questioning the woman about what she stole.

"What you'd take, tell me what you took," the officer says as he approaches the woman and her 3-year-old.

"I didn't steal nothing," the woman says as she opens her purse and shows it to the officer.

When the officer tells her she needs to stay with him until they speak to store employees, she runs away.

Bodycam footage shows the officer pinning the woman down to the ground as yells "I didn't do anything."

The child can be seen wandering nearby and crying until another officer arrives and removes the child from the immediate scene.

The child was not pepper-sprayed or injured during the arrest. The woman has been charged with trespassing and given an appearance ticket, according to a statement from Rochester police.

The officer involved has been placed on administrative duty until an internal investigation is completed.

Rochester Police Department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Police Accountability Board Alliance said in a statement that several disturbing incidents in recent years "prove that the Rochester Police Department needs to fundamentally change its organizational culture."

The organization said there are "troubling parallels" between the February 22 incident and an incident involving a 9-year-old in January.

On January 29, footage showed Rochester police handcuffing and pepper-spraying a 9-year-old girl while trying to remove her from a violent family crisis.

"Both incidents involved Black mothers. Both involved Black children," the statement said. "Both involved Black people obviously in crisis. Both involved officers using pepper spray on or around a Black child."

The department previously made headlines for the death last year of Daniel Prude, a Black man who was suffering from a mental crisis.

His brother Joe Prude called 911 on March 23 hoping police could get his brother help. Instead, they handcuffed him and put a white bag over his head before pressing his head into the pavement.

In May 2020, police announced an internal investigation into an incident where an officer handcuffed a 10-year-old during a traffic stop, local outlet WHAM reported. Rochester Police Chief La'Ron Singletary later said his investigation cleared officers of any wrongdoing.