Vancouver police chief Adam Palmer has defended one of his sergeants videotaped yelling at a woman in a parking lot.

She had left two young kids in an SUV for 20 minutes on a hot day as she went into an East Vancouver grocery store.

"We're all just human beings," Palmer told reporters. "And he was trying to convey to that woman the seriousness of what she'd done to her children."

He said that the woman has not been charged.

However, the Ministry of Children and Family Development has been notified about the incident.

Police were called to the scene by passersby, who saw a six-year-old boy and three-year-old girl in distress in the vehicle. 

A sergeant could be heard on a video lecturing the woman after she returned to her vehicle.

"The windows were up," he said. "It's hot outside. Your children could have died."

The video was posted on YouTube.