A Mississippi woman claims she was fired from her job at Walmart after filming a boy wearing only a diaper in frigid temperatures while his mother went about her shopping.
Felicia Nicole, the now-former Walmart employee, and other shoppers confronted the mother as her son sat shivering in the cart while she pushed him around the store.
The little boy could be seen shaking and his teeth chattering at the Jackson, Miss., store during last week’s winter storm.
Nicole said it was 20F or colder when the mother and child came in.
She said before her video began that another shopper covered the boy with a black coat after his mother refused to get him something to wear.
An older man approached the mother and repeatedly asked, “What’s wrong with you?” as the woman grabbed groceries and tossed them into the cart, including some frozen items that landed on her already-cold son.
The mother told the man to lower his voice before continuing her shop.
Nicole and other shoppers suggested calling the police, but the mother appeared to say cops had already been called on her twice before.
“As long as you got hot water, fire extinguisher …,” she said, before dramatically pausing.
Nicole replied, “When you come in the store fully dressed and your baby’s not …,” to which the woman shot back, “How many kids you got?”
A second video showed another shopper putting a shirt and pants that she had purchased on the boy herself, as the mother fiddled on her phone while waiting for her son to be dressed.
Felicia later posted on TikTok that police were called on the mother.
“Yes, we did call the police. I mean, why wouldn’t we? Why wouldn’t we?” she said, trying to hold back tears.
“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?”
Hours after posting the original videos, Nicole’s manager told her to take them down, which she did.
She had two days off and when she reported to work, she learned she was fired two hours before her shift ended.
“I took it upon myself to record it for the child’s sake,” Nicole wrote on a GoFundMe she started for herself to pay her bills.
“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 because I was only trying to help and save that baby’s life.”
She has received more than $18,000 in donations.
It is unknown if the Jackson Police Department took any action against the boy’s mother, though Nicole wrote on her TikTok that the child is now with his grandmother.
