We often hear that when you see something, you should say something and that is especially true when you are facing a very dangerous situation that could have consequences that last for a lifetime. The problem is, it can be difficult to speak up when you find yourself in the situation but not everybody has such difficulty. Some people put their best foot forward, search for all the bravery they can find and say something.
That is what Jordan Cooper did when she saw something. She is a part-time waitress at Olive Garden and a mother-to-be from Paris, Tennessee. She may not have typically been brave enough to speak up but she saw something that could have meant a life and she decided this takes the right stuff. The funny thing was, she was working on a Sunday night, even though she doesn’t typically work that evening.
When helping the table with a couple and two young children, she knew in her gut that something was wrong. She saw the baby in particular, who was younger than two years old and she said in an interview: “I can’t even describe to you how bad she looked and how and why nobody noticed it.”
She posted it on Facebook and it has since been deleted. She described the face of the child as “black and blue all over.”
She then explained that the man was handling the young girl harshly, force-feeding her and grabbing her to take her to the bathroom when she cried. The woman’s quick thinking ended up putting the couple behind bars with $200,000 worth of bond each.
Cooper took a photo of the man in the background with the help of another table.
The food serice industry is a thoughtless one that does not get the credit it deserves… This woman is a damn #Herohttps://t.co/gWtoz4QxiE
— Stop, Drop & Roll One Annie (@CrazyXxYall) March 7, 2019
“I had slid them my number, and they sent [the photos] to me as soon as they walked out the door,” Cooper shared with WPSD.
She also got the license plate number and called 911 to get DCFS involved.
An Olive Garden waitress wrote a Facebook post about serving a baby covered in 'black and blue' bruises. The baby's parents were later arrested. https://t.co/M3Iw84Ka6R
— INSIDER (@thisisinsider) March 7, 2019
Aaron Caldwell is the 911 dispatcher who took the call and wrote down the information. They also got more details from Facebook.
“She put it online and when I found it. It had 1,400 shares,” Caldwell shared with WSIL. “It just so happened that we knew each other and I’m a dispatcher.” The parents, Mark Lee Pierce and Jessica Woodworth are now up on charges of aggravated child abuse and neglect. The children are safe.
It is only possible to see the original post on the news station, because it was taken down, but she did do a follow-up to let people know that the children were safe.
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“I deleted the post but the baby is found and the… parents are in custody,” she wrote. “My heart can now be at rest. Thank you to everyone who helped me find these terrible people!”