Boy takes Range Rover on a joy ride, NYC cops say. His appetite for cookies ended it
Two children are home safe after taking their parent’s SUV on an 100-plus mile joyride to the New Jersey-Delaware border, New York City police say.
A 12-year-old boy and his 7-year-old cousin were found “in good condition” at a New Jersey rest stop on Monday, hours after a surveillance video showed them “climbing into a white Range Rover and driving away” from a home in central Queens earlier that morning, police told McClatchy News in a statement.
The kids were taken back to the NYPD’s 106th Precinct, where authorities say the boy told officers he was inspired by a social media challenge to drive a car until it ran out of gas, WCBS reported.
NYPD said it responded to a report of the stolen vehicle just before 9 a.m. Monday and later discovered how the children were involved, according to the statement. They were finally found along the New Jersey-Delaware line around 2:30 p.m., AMNY reported.
No injuries were reported.
“Everyone gets a temptation at that age to do something crazy,” neighbor Lawrence Keyser told WCBS. “You just hope as a parent that they don’t hurt themselves or anyone else.”
Police managed to track down the children after one of them tried using a parent’s credit card to buy cookies at a rest stop, according to WNBC. The pair had taken the New Jersey Turnpike “all the way into Delaware” before they were stopped by local authorities, according to the news station.
A relative later thanked police but wouldn’t tell TV station WCBS how the 12-year-old learned to drive.
Police did not say if any charges will be filed.