Video shows adults putting children into car trunk outside Florida Cici's restaurant

JACKSONVILLE, FL (KTRK) -- Customers inside a Florida pizzeria captured video of children climbing into the trunk of a car and adults shutting them inside. Now officials are trying to figure out who the adults in the video are.

A Facebook user first uploaded the video when she spotted four people getting out of the trunk of the car at a Cici's restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. The family then came inside the restaurant.

"They couldn't afford to eat. They wanted to leave," Saravana Kabalan, with the Cici's Pizza franchise, told WJXX-TV.

She offered the family a discount.

"'I would be glad to offer you a discount, we would love for you to stay and dine in' and they said 'no, no, no, we are leaving, we'll go somewhere else' and they left," said Kabalan.

Customers then began recording video of the family as they packed up to leave. The video shows at least one child get back into the trunk of the car before an adult shut them inside.

One of those customers, who asked to remain anonymous, said two of the adults in the group came back inside the restaurant and made threats when they realized they were being recorded.

"She said 'you picked the right one today' meaning like she was going to do something," the woman said, pointing out that everyone else was too scared to call police. "No one wanted to be seen dialing numbers on the cellphone."

"This is unacceptable, there's no explanation for this, there's no excuse for this," John Harrell with Florida's Department of Children and Families told WJXX-TV. "We are talking about serious safety concerns as it pertains to the video. We need to find out more about what led up to this and the living situation of the children involved."

A spokesman for the DCF says employees were able to grab the license plate number of the vehicle from the video. They believe they know who is in the video and are working with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to track them down. However, their names have not been released to the public, WFOX-TV reports.