11-year-old drives stolen car into woman but is too young to be charged, NY cops say
The driver of a stolen car seen crashing into a woman in Rochester, New York, turned out to be an 11-year-old boy, the city’s police department said.
The boy drove the car into the 34-year-old woman at an intersection the evening of Feb. 26, according to a statement provided to McClatchy News by Rochester Police Department Capt. Greg Bello.
When officers responded, people who witnessed the collision identified the child as the person behind the wheel, Bello said. He was still in the area when authorities arrived.
Footage of the crash published by WHEC-TV shows the car making a left turn at an intersection and directly hitting the woman, who had just crossed a crosswalk with a second person.
The woman was taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries to her upper body, according to police.
Officers ultimately apprehended the boy, then discovered his age, Bello said.
They released him to his parents because he’s too young “to be charged with a crime” in New York, according to the police captain.
The car he was driving was stolen from Henrietta, which is about a 10-mile drive south from Rochester, Bello said.
“It is not unusual for us to catch 14 to 17-year-olds but it is unusual for us to catch an 11-year-old,” Bello told WROC.
After releasing the 11-year-old to his parents, officers referred the incident to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, according to police.
Under New York State’s Raise the Lower Age law, which went into effect in December 2022, children younger than 12 can’t be charged in most cases.
In January, an 11-year-old girl was handcuffed by deputies who accused her of stealing a car in Syracuse, about an 85-mile drive southeast from Rochester, McClatchy News previously reported.
After nearly seven minutes in handcuffs, she was released when Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies learned she wasn’t the suspect they were searching for, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
Footage of the incident showed the girl handcuffed behind her back. After more deputies arrived, she started to cry, a second video reviewed by McClatchy News showed.
The sheriff’s office said that deputies had the authority to detain the girl because she closely resembled the description of the female suspect who wore a similar coat: a pink puffy jacket.
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