2 teenage girls face charges after video of toddler smoking vape pen shared on social media
An investigation is underway after two teenagers in Pennsylvania shared footage of a 2-year-old boy smoking from a vape pen on Snapchat.
Pennsylvania State Police said Monday that the incident took place between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Jan. 9, as one of the suspects, a 17-year-old female, was babysitting the toddler at a home in St. Clair Township, according to a now-deleted press release.
The second suspect, an 18-year-old girl, is apparently the babysitter's friend. Both are believed to be students in the United School District of Armagh and neither is related to the child victim.
In footage of the incident, the toddler can be seen inhaling from a vape device — which police later discovered contained 3 percent nicotine but no marijuana — as one of the suspects is videotaping him. The second girl can be seen holding up her cell phone near the first suspect's camera, seemingly taking photos of her own, as the child falls over and starts coughing.
Authorities were made aware of the incident by a concerned social media user, who saw the video on Snapchat and reported it to police on Saturday through Safe2Say Something, a youth violence prevention program run by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General.
Police, in turn, found and alerted both child protective services and the victim's parents, who previously did not know what had transpired that night.
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It was later revealed that the child, "while observed in the video to be coughing after inhaling from the device," did not exhibit any side effects and is expected to be okay.
Both of the suspects are now facing charges for endangering the welfare of children.
The child's mother, who remains unnamed in media reports, told WPXI on Monday that she was "disgusted" by the teenagers' behavior.
"I’m very upset," she said. "I'm in disbelief they'd even laugh or have [the vape] in reach of a child's possession. I'm not trusting anybody anymore to babysit my child. I’m done. I don't even want to put him in daycare. I can't trust anybody anymore."
