GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A four-second video that went viral over the weekend ended up landing a mother in jail.
Diana Schaffer said she had no idea her car and 12-year-old son were going viral until she got a phone call on Monday.
"I'm really not a social media kind of person, and so I didn't know anything until Gwinnett County Police Department called me and asked me to come home so they could show me the video," Schaffer explained.
The four-second video was taken by a driver who was behind Schaffer on Saturday morning. In the video, you see a bassinet in the trunk, and right next to it, you see Schaffer's 12-year-old son pop his head up.
Almost immediately, people started commenting on the post. Almost every comment was negative, and many posted, asking for someone to call the police on the driver -- even some going as far as slowing the video down to grab her license plate number and then reposting her license plate number in the comments.
Here is the original viral post on Instagram by atlscoop:
Schaffer said while she can see why people thought her son was riding in the trunk, she said it doesn't paint the whole picture.
She said she was driving back to her home in Duluth after picking up the bassinet in Buford to be donated to a deserving family. Schaffer said she founded a nonprofit called "Hanging onto Positive Expectations" with the mission to provide basic necessities for children in the community who are under-served, with a focus on single parents.
Schaffer said the bassinet was supposed to be broken down when she picked it up, but when she arrived, it was still in one piece, so she decided to just put it in her trunk.
"The seats were let down," she explained.
Schaffer said she told her son to sit on top of the folded-down back seats and hold on to the bassinet so it didn't fly out.
However, as the video shows, her son ended up in the trunk area of the car. Schaffer said she had no idea. She said she had other things in the back seat behind her that were going to be donated. In fact, she said if the woman were not recording, she would have never known her son crawled to the trunk.
Schaffer said when she watched the video when the Gwinnett County Police showed up at her home, she couldn't believe what she was watching.
"When he looked up, he looked dead into the lady's camera. It looked like he knew what was going on," she said.
Schaffer said she thought she was going to get some type of ticket but quickly found out she was going to be arrested.
"That's something I'll never forget," she explained.
Gwinnett County Police charged Schaffer with reckless conduct and a seatbelt violation.
Schaffer said she's not mad about the woman recording her and actually praised the Gwinnett County Police Department on how they treated her during the whole ordeal.
As far as the comments, Schaffer said she read most of them after she was alerted to the video. She said she does understand how some could draw those conclusions if you only watched the quick clip.
"I just want to tell them I forgive them because you know they don't know who I am, they didn't know my intentions, they didn't have a clue," Schaffer said.
She added, "I'm not here to bash anyone. I'm just here to clear my name."
Schaffer said she would never intentionally put her son in danger. And looking at the video, knowing he snuck back there, she completely understands how quickly something bad could have happened.
She said this would never happen again, and she will never put her son in the position where he has the opportunity to crawl into the trunk with the trunk being open.
"God forgives us, and so the world needs to be a little less crucifying," Schaffer said.