The mother whose 2-year-old girl fell from a moving car in Mankato while still in a child car seat was charged Thursday with three offenses.
Maimuna K. Hassan, 40, was charged in Blue Earth County District Court with gross-misdemeanor child endangerment, a misdemeanor driver's license violation and a petty misdemeanor for failing to properly secure a child passenger restraint.
The tot's tumble out of the car after the driver's side rear door swung open Monday was captured on a trailing motorist's mounted dash camera and has been viewed more than 1.2 million times on Facebook as of Thursday afternoon.
A police officer's inspection of the car soon afterward found that the child restraint device lacked the strap needed to secure the car seat to the vehicle, according to the charges. Also, the door that flung open earlier was latched but not fully closed.
"I couldn't believe what I was seeing at first," Chad Mock wrote on Facebook. "If it didn't happen in front of me, I'd never believed it."
Mock was rounding a corner on Minnesota Street near a Hy-Vee grocery store about 11:45 a.m. when he saw the girl tumble into the middle of the street.
Hassan kept driving while Mock stopped and rushed to the girl to protect her from passing traffic. He picked the girl up, put her in his vehicle and pulled into the Hy-Vee parking lot and waited for police to arrive.
About 20 minutes later, the mother returned, Mock said Tuesday in an interview with the Star Tribune. By then, he said, police were on the scene.
