When selecting a vehicle for one's ill-advised attempt at a joyride, a cement truck is probably not the best choice. An 11-year-old Minnesota boy was promptly arrested after allegedly stealing one of these monstrosities and taking police on a lengthy high-speed chase, KTTC reports. The boy, whose name has not been released by local authorities, is believed to have lifted the truck from a contractor in Dodge Center before initiating a joyride that quickly became a public spectacle.
"It's certainly not your normal traffic stop, not your normal chase," Dodge County Sheriff Scott Rose told KTTC on Sunday, shortly after the chase had been resolved. According to local authorities and eyewitness accounts, the boy took his borrowed whip around town "6 or 7 times" before ultimately coming to a stop and attempting to flee on foot. "He was smiling, hooting, and hollering," Troy Flatness, an alleged witness, told reporters. "He was having a good time."
During the chase, which lasted nearly 80 minutes, injuries were thankfully avoided. However, according to police, damage to their own vehicles was of no concern to the young boy. "He just tried to take out my car," one officer told dispatchers during the chase, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "He rubbed the whole passenger side of my squad [vehicle]."
The boy was held at a juvenile detention facility in Rochester and is set to face formal charges this week, CBS Minnesota reports. Noting that the keys were apparently left inside the cement truck and easily accessible to the suspected joyride initiator, local police are urging residents to please stop doing things like that.
