Great article, though I feel compelled to add that with respect to journalistic integrity, a group of seven or nine officers (I’ve read both numbers) pepper spraying a nine-year-old-girl already in handcuffs is a deeply emotion-stirring event, and it should be.

No, it must be.

Another emotional element of this case worth reporting is that an assistant commissioner of police for the Department went on the record almost immediately to say that police procedures “required” pepper spraying the girl.

That’s damning of the mentality and morality of the Rochester Police Department. The new police chief walked the statement back not long after, but it’s hard to accept that any uniformed police officer would believe it required to torture (yes, let’s use real talk here) a handcuffed nine-year-old-girl who was not a threat to herself or anyone else.

If these facts don’t make people furious, we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands with our society. There just isn’t any way of talking about this realistically without resorting to strong emotion.

Let’s be real, the cops in the Rochester Police Department who believe this kind of behavior is acceptable and even “required” are morally broken. Something is fundamentally wrong with them as human beings.

They have no business being police officers. They put society in danger. We need to be angry about this, and we need to force the Rochester Police Department to enforce simple standards of human decency.

Strong emotion seems to me to be what is truly “required” here, despite what the assistant commissioner said.