Cincinnati Police Release Body Cam Footage From Cop Moments After He Tasered an 11-Year-Old Girl

The Cincinnati Police Department has released body camera footage that shows the moments after an off-duty Cinncinnati officer tasered an 11-year-old girl in the back on August 6th.

NBC News reports that Officer Kevin Brown was working as security guard at Kroger’s supermarket when he accused Donesha Gowdy of shoplifting. Brown told police that he asked Gowdy to stop, but when she didn’t, he tased the girl, before turning on his body camera.

“The last thing I want to do, sweetheart, is tase you like that,” Brown is heard telling Gowdy. “When I say stop, you stop. You know [you’re] caught, just stop. That hurt my heart to do that to you. Then I got to listen to all these idiots out here in the parking lot telling me how I was wrong for tasing you. You broke the law and fled as I tired to apprehend you.”

“You know what, sweetheart, this is why there’s no grocery stores in the black community, because of all this going on,” he said, while taking the stolen goods out of her backpack.

In the video, Gowdy winces in pain as officers remove the barbs from her back. “It hit my back real fast and then I stopped, then I fell and I was shaking and I couldn’t really breathe,” she told NBC News.

The New York Times reports that the police department completed its internal review of the incident and found the following:

The comment violated departmental rules against racial prejudice, according to the internal review, which was also released this week. Officer Brown violated three other rules by using the stun gun in the first place, not warning Donesha that he was going to do so, and not turning on his body camera until after the fact, the review found.

Brown has been suspended from the Cinncinnati Police Department pending a departmental hearing, the Times reports, after which the police chief will determine potential disciplinary action.

“Tasing an 11-year-old who posed no danger to the police is wrong,” Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley told the Times in an email. “I’m sorry for the harm to her and her family.”