11-year-old boy laughs while leading cops on chase in stolen school bus

An 11-year-old boy stole a school bus and laughed as he led Louisiana cops on a police chase before crashing into a tree, police and witnesses said.

The pint-size pilferer stole the yellow school bus from the parking lot of the Progress Head Start Center in Baton Rouge on Sunday, a police spokesperson told The Advocate.

The boy, who was not identified, hit three cars before crashing into a tree as multiple police units followed him and set up blockades at other intersections to hold back traffic, the newspaper reported.

“We got our first call about a juvenile driver at 9:45 a.m., in the area of Airline Highway and Scenic Highway,” Sgt. L’Jean McKneely Jr. told the newspaper.

The boy, who was not hurt, was charged with theft of a vehicle, aggravated flight, three counts of damage to property and one count of aggravated assault, police said.

The boy led cops on a chase from Baton Rouge’s Scotlandville section to Central, some 11 miles away, before coming to a stop outside a woman’s home, where he hit a gas line and a tree, WBRZ reported.

The boy, who figured out how to work the bus’s push-start ignition, was too short to reach its pedals, so he had to stand up to drive, according to the station. He was also seen giving the middle finger to cops as he drove past them, police told WBRZ.

Video of the chase of the obtained by WAFB shows multiple police units following the bus as it sped past an intersection.

“As it got closer and closer and closer, it’s a little boy in there and he was laughing,” witness Joy Gradney said. “He was like giggling on the way across Florida, so he gets right past me. I seen him, like, oh my goodness, it’s a boy, a little boy.”

A second video showed the boy having difficulty at a traffic circle, where he ran over several curbs, WAFB reported.

No injuries were reported.

“I’m thinking what in the world is going on and my first thought was that it was a lot of kids on the bus,” homeowner Libby Smith told the station. “Thank goodness he was OK, he was safe, but it was not your typical Sunday afternoon occurrence for sure. So we’re blessed that it didn’t do any more damage than it did.”

Share this article:

Source: Read Full Article