Horrifying footage shows woman slapping and biting her toddler for interrupting her 4-hour Fortnite binge
A woman has been charged after being accused of assaulting a 14-month-old child and broadcasting the abuse on gaming website Twitch.
The attacker was caught on camera biting, slapping, and throwing the baby around for interrupting her game of Fortnite, which she had been playing for several hours, Metro reports. While her Twitch profile has since been taken down, copies of the horrifying clip made rounds on social media before authorities were alerted on Tuesday.
The woman is seen biting and slapping the child four hours into her gaming binge, according to a timestamp on her live stream. She is seen handling the child roughly on the bed about three hours later.
Authorities tracked the 31-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after reports of the abuse and proceeded to arrest her at her Calgary, Alberta residence on Wednesday.
A man and two children who were found at the home were escorted to a safe location. Meanwhile, the woman is due to appear in court on January 17.
According to Calgary Police Service Staff Sgt. Peter Siegenthaler, the younger of the two children is the alleged victim of the attack. However, he said the footage is still being analyzed for evidence and noted the investigation is "far from over."
"There’s a good likelihood that more charges are going to be laid as we go deeper into the investigation," Siegenthaler explained. "We’ve seen videos like that surface over the last little bit of time, and we see more and more of these videos surface. It’s hard because sometimes these videos are being circulated for years and it’s hard to determine the origin and the time these videos were produced."
"This video, we were able to identify a person very quickly, and probably within several hours, two hours, we were able to identify the person," he added.
The staff seargent thanked the public for reporting the crime.
"When you find a video such as this online, it is very important that you report it to police, and not just share it throughout social media platforms," Siegenthaler asserted. "In this case, we were able to act swiftly to locate the children to ensure their wellbeing, thanks to those who quickly reported the video."