Angry dad who punched son in viral video arrested..bail set at $1M

A convenience store surveillance video captured a case of child abuse that resulted in the arrest of a 23-year-old man.

The video shows a toddler running through the aisle of Vest Market in downtown Bakersfield.

A man pursued the boy down the aisle as the boy held his arms out in a defensive gesture. The man is then seen punching the child in the face. The force of the blow sent the child sprawling on the floor.

A pregnant woman, can be seen coming and taking the distraught boy away.

The child appears to leave the store crying and covering his face.

The police were notified of the video after it was leaked online. They asked the public for help identifying the man in the video who ruthlessly punched the small child.

By midnight, the man who was caught on video punching the toddler, 23-year-old Justin Whittington, was in police custody. 

The Kern County Jail website showed Whittington remained behind bars on Friday with bail set at $1 million.

'That was horrible, man,' owner of Vest Market Harry Dindral told the Daily News.'The worst thing I've ever seen,' he said of the incident at his establishment. 

Dindral says he was in the back of the store when his employee ran to him and told him to watch the surveillance video to see if there was any proof of the violent assault.

Dindral later gave the footage to cops who were able to track down the suspect.

'It was the right thing to do,' Dindral told the Daily News. 

'You don’t hit a child like that.'

Local Tattoo artist Chris Danaher who works near the market said he could never fathom acting violently towards a child.

'I would never imagine treating a child like that,' Danaher told ABC.

'His wife or girlfriend or whatever was clearly pregnant. She had no regard to it. She picked up her son and left the store,' he added.

Danher said sadly the child is too young to truly understand what is going on. 

'It's terrible. That kid is obviously too young to know what was going on. Honestly, couldn't be more than 3 years old, and I just couldn't imagine anyone doing that to me or me doing that to a child whatsoever,' said Danaher.

A second video released on Friday shows Whittington allegedly picking up his son like a rag doll

The video was posted to social media and shared thousands of times.Police tracked down Whittington at his home after the video went viral online.

The boy was evaluated by medical professionals and he was determined to have no injuries.

He was left at the Whittington home in the care of his mother, Crystal Rhoden Whittington.

Outraged Facebook users flooded the couple’s social media pages with comments. Crystal Whittington left a message of support for her locked up husband on the couple’s joint Facebook page (see above).

In one Facebook post — which she later deleted — she wrote, “The police want to interview me… Funny, I didn’t even remember applying for a job there!”