Video footage released by the Cleveland Police Department shows officers being led on a high-speed chase by an 11-year-old boy who took off driving after his mother took his Playstation 4 away.
Officers found the boy driving an SUV, parked in a parking lot, and turned on their car’s lights. That’s when the boy slammed on the gas pedal and started driving wildly down the road.
The footage, from a dashboard camera inside the police car, shows the boy running multiple red lights and driving up to 90 miles per hour at times.
The boy ended up crashing the 2013 Dodge Durango he stole from his mother on Nov. 4 into a parked truck, police officers told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He took it around 10:45 p.m. from his Brooklyn home after she went to bed.
The boy’s mother found out the SUV had been stolen when she got a call from her son’s father, who told her he saw the boy driving the vehicle. The father chased the boy but the boy tried hiding by pulling into a lot in front of the former Brooklyn fire station.
Mom took PlayStation away, so 11-year-old Cleveland boy led police on second high-speed chase in 13 months. https://t.co/x5fUgHhRnC pic.twitter.com/IVJvDDVsje
— clevelanddotcom (@clevelanddotcom) November 5, 2018
When officers pulled into the lot, he took off.
The boy stole his mother’s SUV twice before, including on Oct. 26, 2017, when he led police on a chase and drove up to 100 miles per hour on I-90.
“The kid’s, like, swerving in and out of traffic, and almost run a couple cars off the road,” said one 911 caller, reported Patch. “He’s swerving in and out of lanes like crazy.”
The charges against him in that case were ultimately dismissed.
In this case, he was treated at the hospital for minor injuries and released, but police said felony charges will be filed against him in juvenile court, reported News 5.
The boy apparently stole the car because he was angry at his mother for taking away his PlayStation, according to police. https://t.co/xL5bi6FmkE
— WPMT FOX43 (@fox43) November 6, 2018
Previous Chase
The father of the boy said last year that his son thought the high-speed chase was a joke.
“He thinks everything is funny,” his father, Christopher Hampton, told News 5. “He thinks because he got away with it the first time, they ain’t going to do nothing to him this time.”
The boy stole his father’s keys because he didn’t want to wait for his sister to get ready for school.
His family thinks he learned reckless driving from video games.
“I told him, he could’ve hurt somebody, he could’ve hurt himself, or he could’ve been killed, he could’ve killed somebody else … and you knew you were wrong. Everything you do is not a joke,” said Hampton.