A cellphone video of a woman loading two small kids into a shopping cart outside a store has gone viral, prompting concerned local police to track her down.
The issue? The cold. It was eight degrees below freezing in the parking lot in North Dakota and the video shows the children wearing only leggings and a shirt, with no socks.
According to the Williston Police, “numerous concerns citizens have reported the incident” at a local grocery store, noting that “the children did not have appropriate winter gear on for the weather conditions.”
In a later update statement posted to Facebook, police said that the children had been “safely located,” and that they were investigating the incident, on Jan. 11.
In the meantime, the video had gone viral on social media, stirring debate on whether the footage captured a moment of abuse or just a few harmless moments in between the warmth of the car and the store.
In 18 hours it was viewed 2.9 million times.
And it was also shared over 50,000 times and gathered over 14,000 reactions.
The video shows a girl in a red top sitting in the trolley. She appears to be wearing a long-sleeve shirt, gray leggings but has no shoes or socks.
A woman, who appears more substantially dressed, is then seen opening the door of the car.
At this point, she spends a few seconds doing something before hoisting a boy onto her shoulder then putting him in the trolley. He also is dressed only in a long-sleeve shirt and trousers, without shoes.
The woman can be seen moving her hands rapidly before she pulls the boy out of the car—some observers on social media have interpreted these movements as her allegedly striking the child.
The woman who shared the video on Facebook said the temperature was minus eight when the incident happened, around 8 a.m.
Some were concerned about the way the woman handled the boy.
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