Just a few months after an 8-year-old Ohio girl drove her parent’s car to Target, a 12-year-old Washington state boy is in custody. He’s accused of stealing his grandfather’s car and driving more than 160 miles over mountains in winter conditions on the day before Thanksgiving.
According to the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, the boy allegedly stole the car in Issaquah, WA, near Seattle. The boy had a connection to rural Moses Lake, WA, in Grant County, about 160 miles away from Issaquah over a 3,000-foot Cascade mountain pass. Issaquah authorities alerted Grant County police to be on the lookout for him there.
Police used a “PIT” maneuver to stop the car
Speaking with USA Today, Grant County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kyle Foreman said that at about 10 a.m. on Nov. 27, Grant County deputies spotted the Volkswagen hatchback, which had been reported stolen from a Moses Lake residential area. Presumably, the boy was still inside the vehicle because Foreman said the 12-year-old led the officers on a short, low-speed chase.
He finally stopped when a deputy used what’s called a PIT maneuver, or when a police car pulls up close to another vehicle and then taps it in such a way as to force the fleeing car sideways. No one was injured, and the vehicle only had minor damage. There were also no accidents or injuries in the boy’s trip across the Cascades.
But referring to the scary situation, Foreman said, “For a 12-year-old to take a vehicle and take it that far, we’re happy we were able to stop him before he hurt himself or hurt somebody else.”
Traffic on the wintry trip was likely worse than usual before the long Thanksgiving weekend. The boy’s name and his motivation for stealing the car and making the trip have not yet been reported. The boy was arrested at the scene on suspicion of possession of a stolen vehicle and felony eluding, the Grant County Sheriff’s Office said. There have been further updates on the case.
“I could barely cook ramen at 12”
Thankfully, the boy accused of stealing the car and all the drivers who encountered a 12-year-old behind the wheel that day were okay. And here’s hoping whatever is going on with his family will get figured out. Still, the social media comments on the Grant County Sheriff’s Office post are pretty funny. One said, “I could barely cook ramen at 12, little homie driving dirty across the state.” Several others on social media said Trump could nominate the boy Secretary of Transportation.
Grant County is farmland, so if he grew up there, he could have learned to drive at a young age, as several comments pointed out. And based on one comment, a minor joyriding in a car is not as rare as it might seem, just maybe not for such a long distance.
One comment said, “I found my mother’s car keys when my parents left my brother and I at home alone. I don’t recall how old I was but I do remember that I was still in grade school. We lived in a cul-de-sac and I just drove it around in circles in the cul-de-sac. I definitely wasn’t brave enough to drive that far.”