A mother is under investigation after a TikTok video showed her berating her child after allegedly physically abusing him at a Costco in San Francisco.
In a TikTok video posted on Nov. 8, the mother is seen speaking to the child, who has his head down and arms crossed, at the store's checkout counter .
TikToker Eileen Molino, who filmed the video, wrote in the caption that the mother had been "slamming [the child] around and saying horrible things to him."
'This is Definitely Abuse'
"I'm recording you lady," says Molina in the video. "Cause this is definitely abuse."
The mother responds by calling Molina abusive before telling the TikToker to get out of her face. Molina proceeds to ask the kid if he's okay while Molina's father is heard saying he plans to call the police on her.
"People are calling the cops because you're acting like a moron," the woman yells at the child.
Molina then accuses the woman of slamming the child against a wall, which the woman denies. When Molina tells the woman she heard her tell her son she was going to punch him, the woman says "he's my child." Watch the video below:
The video has since garnered more than 8.8 million views on the platform and hundreds of comments with netizens expressing their concern for the poor child.
"The worst thing is this poor child went home and probably got it worse at home," wrote one user.
"If she treats him like this in public, I can't imagine what she does in the privacy of her house," commented another.
San Francisco Human Services Agency 'Looking Into' It
In a follow-up video, Molina explained that she and her father were in the checkout line at the Costco when they saw the mother berating the child before grabbing him by the shoulder and throwing him against the wall.
According to Molina, she pulled out her cellphone and started recording after she saw the woman grabbing the kid's head and to holding him up against the plexiglass wall and threatened to punch him in the face. Molina added as soon as she reported the incident to the police the woman left her groceries behind and fled the store.
The mother was later identified as Cristina Hughes-Trujillo and after a Twitter user drew the San Francisco Human Services Agency's attention to the video, the agency replied saying they were "looking into this."
