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Police probe Snapchat video showing Westmoreland County child vaping while being babysat

TNS

Police probe Snapchat video showing Westmoreland County child vaping while being babysat

Charges are pending against two teenage girls accused of letting a 2-year-old boy one of them was babysitting use a vaping device containing nicotine.

Video of the incident was posted to social media. Pennsylvania State Police in Indiana County said they learned of it Sunday through the state attorney general’s Safe2SaySomething tipline.

Police got the video and launched an investigation, quickly identifying the child and the suspects.

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The incident occurred Jan. 9 at the 17-year-old babysitter's home on Jan-L Street in St. Clair, Westmoreland County, between 5 and 8 p.m., police said.

The teen was babysitting when the 2-year-old “took the vaping device from a nightstand and began to use it,” police said.

"They did not prevent him from inhaling from it,” and by not doing so, they violated a duty of care, Trooper Clifford Greenfield said Monday.

The babysitter and her friend, an 18-year-old woman from Armagh, Indiana County, who was also in the house, let the child inhale, police said. He coughed but “did not display any other visible effects from inhaling,” police said.

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Trooper Greenfield said the device was a Juul and belonged to the babysitter. He said the video does not show any smoke coming from the device after the child puts it to his mouth.

"We don't know with certainty if it was turned on, but everything that we know points to the child having inhaled from the device," Trooper Greenfield said. "In the video, there's no visible cloud of smoke, just the child pressing the device to his mouth and coughing."

One or both of the teenagers took video and posted it to Snapchat, police said. The tip about it came to police the same day it was submitted.

The child is from New Florence. The trooper said the boy's family and the babysitter's family know one another and are not related. There was no indication that the babysitter and her friend were encouraging the child.

“We believe, actually, that they had told him, 'No,' to not do it, they were telling him 'No,' one or both of them were, but they did not take further action to stop him from actually doing it when they were clearly in the room with him," Trooper Greenfield said. "They could have grabbed it from him."

The vaping device is believed to have contained 3% nicotine but no THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, police said.

Police contacted the child’s parents, who were not aware of what happened.

“The parents, we believe, are completely innocent in this,” Trooper Greenfield said.

The incident was reported to Children and Youth Services.

Police said charges of endangering the welfare of children are pending against both teenagers. The 17-year-old will be charged as a juvenile.

Barbara Parkins, superintendent of United School District in Armagh, said the teenagers are both seniors at the high school. She said the district and police were both contacted through the same tip line.

The district, which does not allow use of vaping devices on school grounds, will not seek to discipline the teens, but it might provide some type of counseling, Ms. Parkins said.

First Published: January 13, 2020, 5:55 p.m.
Updated: January 13, 2020, 7:41 p.m.

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