HOUSTON – Jessica Leija could not believe what she saw.
"I was in shock," Leija said, as she described her encounter with two young children she saw sitting in a hot car.
Leija recorded the ordeal with a video camera, since she did not have a cell phone. In the video, a young child can be heard crying while Leija narrated what she saw.
"Now the child is by himself completely," Leija can be heard saying in the video.
The video was recorded Tuesday in the parking lot of a strip mall at the intersection of Gessner and Long Point Road in the Spring Branch neighborhood.
"It was hot, hot, hot," described Leija, who said she recorded the video at around 12:30 Tuesday afternoon.
In the video, one of the children can be seen getting out of the SUV, which had a window rolled down. The video also details a confrontation with a woman who appears to have left the children inside the vehicle.
"It's 100 degrees out here," Leija can be heard saying.
"We're leaving," the woman responded.
"It doesn't matter. You should have taken your children inside," Leija countered.
The woman then gets in her car and drives away with both children. Leija did not call police, and as of Wednesday no charges have been filed against the woman.
Still, officials warn the video is an example of what not to do, especially when temperatures are as high as they have been.
"It's never OK to leave a dog, a child, elderly, it's never OK to leave someone in a hot car without the car running," said Harris County Precinct One Constable Alan Rosen.