After a woman left her child unattended in her vehicle for a Starbucks run, a video of another customer confronting her for it has drawn more than half a million views on TikTok.
In the video, the poster Melissa Joy Ledman (@melissajoyledman) can be heard attempting to figure out which customer inside the Starbucks location drives the gold Chevrolet sedan in the parking lot, as a child is sitting in the car with the windows up and the air conditioning off.
“Is my baby crying?” one woman inside the store asks as she heads outside.
Ledman then follows the mother, who rolls down her car’s window and tells the poster to mind her business before walking back into the store. The TikToker then asks bystanders to call the police. As she is speaking to Starbucks employees about the matter, the mother returns to her car and drives away.
@melissajoyledman Ok TT do your thing! Cops were called but this woman parked next to me leaving her baby in the car. No ac. Windows up. DON’T LEAVE BABIES IN THE CAR ON PURPOSE!!! #keepbabiessafe #idiots ♬ original sound – Melissa Joy Ledman
“Ok TT do your thing!” the video is captioned. “Cops were called but this woman parked next to me leaving her baby in the car. No ac. Windows up. DON’T LEAVE BABIES IN THE CAR ON PURPOSE!”
Twenty states have laws barring parents from leaving children unattended in vehicles, according to kidsandcars.org. In 2022, there were 36 hot car deaths resulting from leaving children unattended in hot vehicles.
In a second video, Ledman says she had been on the phone in her car when the woman pulled in to park next to her, leaving the windows up and air conditioning off with her child in the car. While someone did call the police and was on hold with them during the incident, the police did not show up for the incident or reach out to her about it.
“I’m hoping they would have found her by her license plate, because she’s done it once, she’s probably done it a million times,” Ledman says in the video. “I have four kids, and I will not leave my kids in the car like that. Yes, there was a drive-thru. She could have gone through the drive-thru, but did she? No. Please, remember, when it’s hot outside, please protect doggies, animals, babies that are left in cars.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Ledman via comment on the video as other methods of contact could not be identified.
Multiple viewers shared that they were upset about the mother leaving her child in the car, only rolling down the window after she was called out.
“Thats sick she went to the car rolled the window down and still came back inside like whaaat,” one commenter wrote.
“Wait did she go to the car and go back inside without the baby?” another said.
“The fact she walked back in made my jaw drop,” a third added.
