The Baltimore mother who slapped her son several times and pulled him out of a protest told CNN on Wednesday she wasn’t concerned that she might be embarrassing her son.
“Not at all,” Toya Graham told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360˚” in an interview set to air Wednesday night. “He was embarrassing himself by wearing that mask and that hoodie and doing what he was doing.”
The video of Graham yanking her son, Michael Singleton, and slapping him with a right hand as CNN affiliate WMAR recorded has led to the Internet calling Graham #motheroftheyear. Many people have praised the single mother of six for going to the Mondawmin Mall and getting her son away from the escalating violence.
Graham told Cooper that she saw her son with a rock in his hand and she lost control of her emotions, even as he put the stone down.
“I did. You know, once he threw that rock down I said, ‘You weren’t brought up like this,’ ” Graham said.
The 16-year-old boy said he understood that his mother was there looking out for him.
Gray’s death has sparked daily protests over police brutality. There have also been riots and looting that prompted the city to put a curfew into effect.
Tameka Brown, one of Graham’s five daughters, told CNN on Tuesday it wasn’t that hard for her mom to spot her 16-year-old half-brother.
“She knows her son and picked him out. Even with the mask on, she knew,” Brown said.
“She has always been tough and knows where we are at,” Brown said.
Graham has one fan in police Commissioner Anthony Batts, who thanked her in remarks to the media on Monday night.
“And if you saw in one scene, you had one mother who grabbed their child who had a hood on his head and she started smacking him on the head because she was so embarrassed,” he said. “I wish I had more parents that took charge of their kids out there tonight.”
