Florida kids stole mom’s car after she took away electronics, were found over 200 miles away, authorities say

CNN
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Authorities in north Florida were surprised to discover a 10-year-old behind the wheel when they pulled over a stolen vehicle this week.

Officers pulled over a white sedan on Interstate 75 just before 4 a.m. Thursday in the city of Alachua, according to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. The vehicle had been reported stolen out of North Port, a city in southwest Florida more than 200 miles away.

The report of the vehicle being stolen prompted deputies to conduct a “high-risk traffic stop,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post.

When the vehicle was stopped, deputies saw a 10-year-old boy hop out of the driver’s seat and his 11-year-old sister exit the car, the sheriff’s office said in the post. Authorities then learned the siblings were also reported missing in North Port and the stolen vehicle belonged to their mother, the post said.

“It was learned that both children were upset with their mother because she took away their electronic devices, which is believed to have been done because they were not using them appropriately,” the sheriff’s office post reads.

After speaking with the children, deputies determined they were not mistreated by anyone in their home. Their mother, who drove three hours to pick up the children, did not want to pursue criminal charges, authorities said.

The children weren’t jailed after the incident with deputies explaining that since their mother did not want to pursue charges over the stolen vehicle, the only “crime is a criminal traffic violation and a juvenile will not be accepted into the department of juvenile justice for misdemeanor criminal traffic,” the sheriff’s office said.