This is a follow up to our post, Mom Sets #BaltimoreRiots Son Straight.

The two sat down for an interview with ABC News:

The teenage boy publicly shamed when his mom smacked him around at the Baltimore riots this week said he knows she “really cares about me.”

A video shows Michael Singleton being dragged from the protests and whacked by his mother, Toya Graham, after she saw him on television and recognized a key piece of clothing.

“What caught my eye was his sweatpants,” she told ABC News. “Even though he had on all black, I knew those sweatpants he had on, they had a stripe on the side of it and then his eye contact met mine. And I knew that was my son.”

Though he was visibly annoyed and tried brushing off his mom in the video that has now gone viral, the 16-year-old recognizes that she was just looking out for him.

“I’m like, ‘Oh man! What is my momma doing down here?'” Michael told ABC News, laughing while thinking back to the moment his mom nabbed him Monday afternoon.

“All my friends know my mother. Every time they see her they’re like, ‘Toya coming.’ Oh, yeah she’s coming. Everybody better get straight,” he said.

He added: “I understand how much my mother really cares about me. I just got to try to do better.”