A former Walmart employee in Mississippi says she was fired after she filmed a mother who brought her toddler into the store wearing nothing but a diaper in near-freezing temperatures.
More from Mom.com: Two Young Brothers Die After Falling Through Ice on Wisconsin Pond
Felicia Nicole, who was working at the store, along with other shoppers, confronted the mother while she shopped in the frozen food section. Felicia filmed as the little boy sat in a cart wearing an oversize jacket and nothing else but a diaper. In the video, Felicia can be heard trying to talk to the mother, who was combative as she threw frozen food into the cart.
"What's wrong with you?" an older man asked before the mother began to yell at him to "Lower your voice." Felicia suggested that they need to call the police, and the mother revealed that the police have been called on her twice before.
"As long as you got hot water, fire extinguisher…," the mother said.
"When you come in the store fully dressed and your baby's not…," Felicia replied.
"How many kids you got?" the mother fired back before walking away.
In a second video, Felicia showed an older woman helping to dress the boy in sweatpants and a sweatshirt while the mother stands nearby looking at her phone. Someone off-camera asks the mother how old the boy is, and she replies, "I don't know, ask him."
Felicia then shared another follow-up video saying that they did in fact call the police, saying in the caption that the child was now in his grandmother's custody.
"When you see a child that's being neglected, don't have on any clothes, just a diaper, no shoes, no socks, no shirt, no nothing. So why wouldn't we call the police?" she said in the video, trying not to cry.
She also revealed that her child had died, and said, "If my child was living, ain't no way in hell my child would be out there with no clothes on, just a diaper."
Felicia revealed that even though she took the video down at her manager's request, she was still fired from Walmart two hours before her shift ended. She created a GoFundMe to help pay her bills, which has exceeded its $5,000 ask by nearly $20,000.
"No, I wasn’t thinking about the consequences at the time. At that time my main focus was on that innocent poor child, and to get him some help," she wrote. "Now I'm jobless bc I was only trying to help and save that baby life."
