Chris Graves and Howie Padilla Star Tribune Published Dec. 18, 2002

A 7-year-old Minneapolis boy stole a car Tuesday morning on the South Side and crashed it -- just 11 days after he had taken another vehicle, authorities said.

About 8 a.m. Tuesday, he drove the stolen car in reverse and smashed into another car near 34th St. and Elliot Av. S., slightly injuring a 10-year-old boy riding with his mother and younger sister in the other car, police said.

"He did it again? I can't believe it," said Debra Taylor, whose 1992 Jeep Cherokee was taken by the boy Dec. 6. "Something needs to be done. This is the beginning of trouble in his life. . . . Someone needs to step in and do something."

Authorities said they are considering filing a report with county officials to determine whether the boy should be removed from his home. In Minnesota, children younger than 10 cannot be charged with a crime. Authorities did not release the boy's name.

On Tuesday, officers arrived at the crash in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood before the car had been reported stolen, according to police reports.

Owner Laura Torres said Tuesday night that she had just started the car and stepped away to let it warm up. No more than three minutes later, it was gone.

The car was flanked in front and back by other vehicles, Torres said.

"How could he do it?" she asked, her 8-year-old daughter, America Perez, at her side. With Torres expecting a baby girl any day and no access to a car, America said she is standing by, ready to call her cousin to take her mother to the hospital.

Sandra Howard, who was driving the car the boy smashed into, said all she saw was a blue car coming her way.

"I kept beeping my horn but it just kept coming," she said. "That boy was going backwards so fast that if I had been someone walking, I would have been dead now."

As it was, her 10-year-old son, Leo III, suffered a black eye and has scratches on his face. Her 15-month-old daughter, Janell, was not injured.

The 7-year-old boy was taken to St. Joseph's Home for Children, police reports said.

After the Dec. 6 crash, when asked by officers where he was going, the boy said: "I just had to get to school and I don't know where it is," according to police reports.

Taylor said she was saddened by the case.

"I looked at my Jeep and cried. Had it been an older teenager, I would have been feeling a lot differently," she said. "But how can you be mad when you see this innocent little baby? He's just a baby."

With her own children in harm's way Tuesday morning, Sandra Howard wasn't seeing an innocent.

"Look what you did here," she said she told the boy. "You hurt a lot of people here."

Later Tuesday she said, "I'm sorry, but to call it what it is . . . it's theft. . . . I'm sure that little boy's got problems, but I've got problems too. My boy's hurt."

Taylor and Howard said that after each crash, police officers asked the boy where he lived and that he said he didn't know. Powderhorn Elementary School gave police the name and address of the boy's grandmother, Taylor said.

But according to a police report in the Dec. 6 case: "Officer was unable to locate parent/guardian, so suspect was taken to St. Joe's."

Taylor had left her vehicle running to warm up that day. One of her neighbors watched as a boy checked every door and found a rear door open, Taylor said. The boy apparently hopped into the front passenger seat, where he sat for a bit before he jumped into the driver's seat and put the Jeep into gear, she said.

That is when her neighbor ran across the street and told her of the theft.

She watched her Jeep lurch forward and then bounce into trees and retaining walls and run up on sidewalks, Taylor said. When the boy got to the corner he did a U-turn and headed back to her house, where he hit another tree before police boxed the car in, forcing him to stop, she said.

It appeared the boy slid down to reach the accelerator, pushed on it and then slid back into the driver's seat to look out the window, she said, noting that he never had the car under control.

Taylor said she was as shocked as the officer appeared to be when her Jeep door opened and "out plopped this little kid with this look on his face: 'What did I do wrong?' "

The boy seemed frightened after officers started talking to him, she said.

"He was outside alone, at that time of the morning, it was dark and that bothered me," she said.

"I have a 7-year-old granddaughter and I can't imagine," she said. "She's very smart, but I can't imagine her doing this.

"I can't imagine any child doing this."

After Tuesday's crash, the boy fought with Howard, trying to run away, then fought with the police, she said.

"I kept asking him what he thought he was doing," Howard said. "Then he started yelling, 'I don't want to go to jail. Don't call the police.' "

After the crash, she told her own son in front of whoever would listen, "I hope you learned something here. I don't care if someone is warming up her car. You don't have a right to just go and take it."

"I know we're blessed, I just hope something's done before someone else gets hurt," Howard said Tuesday night. "I mean . . . he's seven!"

-- Anonymous, December 19, 2002

Answers

spank the little brat! spank him hard! spank his grandmother too.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2002