Almost 84,000 Facebook users have shared the disturbing video of a little girl and her semiconscious mother riding SEPTA’s Route 66 bus through the Northeast since a user named John Warren posted the four-plus-minute clip on March 6.
Authorities have responded to the viral video, too. Investigators from the police Special Victims Unit and the Department of Human Services have identified the mother and may have taken her child from her, according to a police source.
The woman’s name has not been released publicly. Nor has she been charged with a crime. Yet, a Facebook user with a profile picture that appears to be the woman in the video posted an angry note on her page days after the video went viral.
Her message: “I [expletive] HOPE ALL YOU SKUMBAGS OUT THERE ARE [expletive] HAPPY I JUST LOST THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD TO ME ALL BECAUSE PPL THINK BEFORE THEY OPEN THERE MOUTHS!”
The Department of Human Services and Philadelphia police have not commented officially on the status of their investigations. The video caused alarm among many social media users, many of whom suggested that the woman appeared under the influence of drugs.
The clip shows the daughter, who appears to be about 5, repeatedly attempting to rouse her mom as the seated woman drops her head toward the floor and the bus travels southbound on Frankford Avenue through Mayfair. Eventually, the woman attempts to grasp the handles of her plastic shopping bag, but its contents fall to the floor. So the child again comes to her aid. The clip ends with the mother slumping back into her seat. Other passengers are seen sitting near the woman and walking past her, but nobody acknowledges her. The bus driver is neither seen nor heard. ••
