Passengers on a crowded US bus watched as a pregnant teenager was attacked by a group of girls but did nothing to try and help her.
Surveillance footage shows the 17-year-old girl Jessica Redmon-Beckstead sitting on a bus in Seattle with her boyfriend when five girls boarded, ABC News reports.
One of the girls, who were aged between 14 and 19, snatched Jessica's MP3 player from her as she walked past.
When Jessica, who was three months pregnant, stood up and questioned the girl her friends began punching and kicked her.
Jessica's boyfriend Jason Decoste jumped up and tried to push the girls away while the other passengers watched on.
"My whole face was like bleeding… and it was dripping and stuff, then I realised what had happened," Jessica said.
Jessica said she yelled twice for the girls to stop, saying she was pregnant, and overheard one respond, "nobody hit her in the stomach."
Once the bus driver noticed what was happening he pulled over.
King County Sheriff's Department Sgt John Urquhart said he was shocked to see video of the November 19 incident, which helped police identify the five attackers.
Sgt. Urquhart said "the ferocity, the intensity, the unprovoked nature" was shocking.
"But what shocks me most is that these girls thought they could do this on a crowded bus with adults and do it with impunity."
Sgt. Urquhart said one of the attackers alleged Jessica's boyfriend stole her mobile phone.
"The female victim has never seen any of these five girls before and the male victim said he'd been at a party where one of the suspects had been," said Sgt. Urquhart.
"But he denies ever taking her cell phone."
Jessica said her main concern was for the baby.
"None of them hit me in the stomach, but one of them was kicking me in the back and I just didn't want anything to happen."
Jessica also said she was upset nobody helped her boyfriend defend her from the attack.
"Out of all those people, I think somebody could have said something sooner," she said.
The teenager was treated at a nearby hospital for a cut over her eye.
Doctors said her baby was unhurt.
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