KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Kansas City pastor is taking heat on social media after posting video of a handicapped woman to Facebook that gained more than one million views.
The video had more than 11,000 shares before Pastor Lamond Rushing removed the clip from Facebook - where hundreds of people mercilessly mocked the woman and hundreds of others shamed him for posting it.
Becky Kittrell said the battery died on her power wheelchair Saturday and she was left freezing in Kansas City's dangerously cold weather.
"If I get stuck for a period of time and stuff, I get so cold I'll be like, 'I have to get home," Becky explained.
Thankfully, a man in a pickup truck offered to help get Becky home.
"That's all the thing, I just needed, just somebody to help me," Becky said. She said it was a true act of kindness.
"They were nice and they did everything they could do for me and stuff, and I thanked them for doing it for me," she recalled.
Little did Becky know, Pastor Rushing was filming her and then posted the video on Facebook for thousands of people to see.
"I had no intent on making fun of nobody. You know, I didn't even think it would even go nowhere and I just put it on there and said 'only in Kansas City," Rushing explained.
Pastor Rushing said he only posted the video because it was something he had never seen before, not because he was trying to make fun of the woman. Becky's not on Facebook, but the video eventually made its way to her son, who told her about it.
Becky thinks rather than just taking a video and putting it online, the pastor could have offered help.
"He should have just came and asked me something, if I needed some help or something," she said.
Even though Lamond said he meant no ill-will, the comments on his video quickly turned cruel.
"When I read the comments, I saw then. I saw then, but I didn't mean no harm in that," Lamond said.
The video remained online during an interview Sunday with Pastor Rushing, where he promised to take it down.
"I would apologize from the bottom of my heart. I would never ever intend to try to make fun of her or anything like that," he said. "That's what I would apologize."
Pastor Rushing said he did drive back around the block after he filmed the video to check and see if everything was okay.
