An 18-year-old teenager from Massachusetts named and shamed her mother on social media for her involvement in the US Capitol riots.
Helena Duke called out her mother, Therese Duke, on Twitter for lying to her and telling her she was going to visit an out-of-town doctor after she spotted her in a video clip that was being widely circulated in the wake of Wednesday's events in Washington, D.C.
Helena Spotted Her Mother in a Viral Video
Unable to locate her mother for two days, Helena posted a series of tweets on Thursday after she came across a video of Therese getting punched outside the US Capitol.
"She didn't give me any more information about it, she was very vague... When I found out about the Capitol being stormed, I looked at her location sharing and it had been off for two days, so I assumed in that moment, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, she might actually be there,'" Duke told The Post. "And then the next day, my cousin shared a video of her getting punched in the face... by police after harassing them."
The clip showed a white woman trying to grab a Black female officer's phone before getting punched right between her eyes.
"Hi mom remember the time you told me I shouldn't go to BLM protests bc they could get violent...this you?" she wrote in a tweet accompanying the video. Helena's Twitter profile is now protected but we managed to obtain screenshots:
In a follow-up tweet, Helena shared a photo of her mom's bloodied face from the video alongside a family picture. "For those that don't believe it's my mother...," she captioned the post.
Therese Fired from UMass Memorial Health Care
Helene' tweets instantly went viral on the platform with users tagging Therese's employer, UMass Memorial Health Care, to draw attention to her involvement in the D.C. riots. Not long after, the Worcester-based healthcare provider confirmed that Therese was no longer employed with them as a caregiver.
"Over the past 24-hours we have received numerous expressions of concern through social media regarding a UMass Memorial caregiver who may have been involved in this week's violent events at the nation's capital. That employee is no longer a part of our organization," UMass Memorial said in a statement Friday afternoon.
