Sunday afternoons in Lubbock are usually reserved for post-church traffic jams or staring blankly at the dust blowing across the Loop. But yesterday, one enterprising 14-year-old decided to spice things up by taking a stolen sedan for a casual joyride around 34th Street and University Avenue. When Lubbock Police spotted him at 2:13 p.m. and tried to initiate a traffic stop, the middle-school-aged mastermind decided to floor it, kicking off a high-speed pursuit through the heart of the city.
Our pint-sized protagonist steered the stolen ride onto 19th Street—a road that is already a localized psychological experiment in driver rage—and proceeded to treat it like a real-life game of Grand Theft Auto. He managed to smash into occupied vehicles at Indiana Avenue and then again at Flint Avenue. Because nothing says “stealthy getaway” quite like creating a trail of crumpled bumpers right along the edge of the Texas Tech campus. Miraculously, no one in those vehicles was hurt, defying the usual laws of Lubbock traffic outcomes.
The Fast & Furious audition finally came to a grinding halt at 19th and Avenue A when a utility pole stubbornly refused to jump out of the way. Showing that his track-and-field skills are about as polished as his steering, the kid hopped out of the wrecked car and tried to outrun LPD on foot. Spoiler alert: the cops won the footrace. After a quick detour to UMC to get his minor injuries checked out, he was booked into the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center.
He’s currently facing charges of reckless driving, evading arrest, and three separate counts of “Failure to Leave Information”—because if there is one thing a 14-year-old running from the cops in a stolen car is known for, it’s politely stopping to exchange insurance cards and driver’s licenses.
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