Tuesday afternoon started out more or less like any other for 15-year-old Genesis Lemus and her family. While her mother Ana finished up chores and errands, Genesis decided to walk to 14th Street with her 10-year-old brother and spend a couple of hours selling plantain chips and atole de elote from a cart.

“I was planning to catch up with them in a little while,” the elder Lemus says in Spanish, after she finished replacing her car battery and washing dishes. But when she arrived at the scene where her daughter had been vending, Lemus did not find Genesis placidly sitting near her wares while her brother did homework with a friend nearby, as she’d expected when her kids left the house that day.

Instead, she found Genesis sprawled on the floor, wailing in pain and surrounded by officers from the Metropolitan Police Department.

“I focused myself on figuring out what had happened to her,” Lemus says. “But the police started asking me for my information over and over again. They accused me of leaving my children alone and said they were going to report me to [the Department of Children and Family Services].”

Later, she learned from her daughter than an officer had confronted Genesis about selling food on the street, explaining that she could not sell goods because she did not have a license and she was a minor. The officer threatened to call CFSA unless Genesis gave the officer her mother’s information, Lemus says, and the girl refused. A confrontation ensued that resulted in Genesis on the ground, screaming out that someone had hurt her knee.

A bystander shot video of the incident on a cellphone, and part of that video has surfaced on social media. In it, an officer can be seen holding onto Genesis’ younger brother, who is trying to pull away. Genesis intervenes, trying to free her brother, and an officer pushes her to the ground. The 15-year-old immediately begins screaming out about her knee and tells an officer “Don’t pressure me, my knee!”

A police report from the incident confirms that officers planned to take the children to CFSA, and that the 10-year-old tried to flee. Genesis was transported to Children’s Hospital, where doctors said she had twisted something in her knee and may have even torn or strained a ligament, her mother tells DCist. She adds that police followed them to the hospital and repeatedly asked Lemus for identifying information for several hours, only leaving at nearly one in the morning.

The incident kicked off a firestorm of outrage among activists and street vendors in the community, who say it’s the culmination of years of harassment from some MPD officers who insult them, chase them, ticket them, and sometimes even throw away their wares for selling on the sidewalk in Columbia Heights.

“This is just the latest incident of abusive and excessive use of force by police terrorizing street vendors trying to make ends meet by sharing food from their culture with their loyal customers,” activist organization Many Languages One Voice wrote in a release to press. “Families are being criminalized for their important work, as a corrupt and inept Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs sends inspectors to threaten and harass vendors.” (DCRA is the agency in charge of licensing businesses and vendors in the city).

MPD tells DCist in a statement that it’s aware of the incident and is reviewing video footage to learn more. It did not comment on the specifics of the altercation with Genesis. MPD told the Washington Post that the teen filed a complaint about the incident, citing an unnecessary use of force.

DCRA, for its part, says that is has no choice except to enforce the law. “One of DCRA’s primary functions is to issue licenses to businesses, including sidewalk vendors. Before a license can be issued, the applicant must demonstrate that their business is in compliance with the District’s regulations,” Ernest Chrappah, the director of DCRA, says in an email statement to DCist. “When a vending operation does not meet the District’s regulations, they cannot be issued a license. DCRA has issued several licenses to sidewalk vendors in Columbia Heights who follow the regulations in place to protect the public.”

It’s difficult for street vendors (particularly those that sell prepared foods) to meet the agency’s licensing requirements, which include, for instance, needing an attached sink. A spokesperson for the agency says that they field calls on a daily basis from businesses in the area who do not want vendors stationed outside their doors.

Over the last several months, street vendors and activist organizations have been working with Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, who represents the area in Columbia Heights where many vendors sell, to come up with a way that they can sell on the sidewalk legally. Community members have also had meetings with police to discuss enforcement, and the fear some children in the community have of the officers. Nadeau called the incident with Genesis “a setback on that progress.”

“As a public official, protecting our most vulnerable people is my greatest concern,” Nadeau tells DCist via email. “That includes children and immigrants who live in Ward 1. We can do better than the current situation our immigrant vendors face.”

On Wednesday, the 15 year old spoke about the incident at a press conference organized by Many Languages One Voice. The police “pushed me down, that made me injure my leg. I was scared and all I ask is for them to leave us alone and stop treating us like criminals. We are not criminals,” she said. “We do not go and steal and be in gangs. We go out and sell atole, tacos, chips, and mangoes to make a living. I do that to help my mother out.”

Lemus says that her children have long watched her receive harassment from the same handful of police officers, who have sometimes chased her for blocks to ticket her. She says that, while the majority of officers leave them alone, some officers appear determined to track down people selling on the sidewalk. Lemus says that when an officer tells her to leave the spot where she’s vending, she immediately gets up and moves to another of the rotating cast of spots popular with street vendors in the area.

“Around here they’re always watching. There’s about six of them. Either they’re racists, or they’re abusive, or something. My kids have been seeing it,” she says. Lemus tells DCist she has been chased several times by the same officer, running for blocks until her heavy cart became too much to carry. She has been issued several $300 tickets, she says. Once, an officer near a school looked at her and made a motion with his fingers to his eyes, meant to signify “I’m watching you,” she says.

These experiences have created a simmering anger in her daughter, Lemus says, one that boiled over at the officers who confronted her on Tuesday. Before the confrontation had escalated, she says that her daughter told the officers to leave her be.

“She said what was in her heart that day. She told [the officers] to leave her alone, to go and chase real criminals who are violent and beat people up,” Lemus says. “She’s a child. She said what she felt. And I support my daughter because she’s brave, and what she said was the truth.”

Lemus is a single mother, and she supports her family almost entirely by street vending, she says. Despite the confrontations, she said she has no choice but to continue doing her work. “I live off of this. It’s not something we want, but … I pay $1,500 a month in rent. What job is going to pay me enough money when I don’t know English? How am I going to buy clothes for my children? Food?” she says.

Starting after her 15th birthday, Genesis has taken to helping her mother out when she can, selling food to passersby on the sidewalk in Columbia Heights for an hour or two at a time, Lemus says.

“My daughter tries to be strong. She told me that even though her knee is hurt, she’s glad,” she says. “Maybe now the police will change. Because they can’t be bothering the street vendors like this.”