Sunday afternoons in Lubbock are usually reserved for fighting church traffic or staring blankly at a dusty horizon. But this past Sunday, a couple of enterprising local youths decided to spice up the 2:00 p.m. slump by recreating Grand Theft Auto near Avenue X and 40th Street.
According to the Lubbock Police Department, an officer spotted a stolen vehicle and attempted a routine traffic stop. Instead of pulling over, the 13-year-old driver—who legally shouldn’t even be trusted with a Walmart motorized shopping cart—decided to floor it. This triggered a pursuit down toward South Loop 289, because nothing says “criminal mastermind” quite like fleeing toward the most heavily patrolled concrete loop in West Texas.
Predictably, the eighth-grade driving skills ran out of road at the 70th Street westbound access road, where our prepubescent protagonist lost control and slammed the stolen ride directly into a barrier. Proving that criminal honor is entirely dead, the 13-year-old immediately bolted from the wreckage on foot, abandoning their 15-year-old passenger to sit in the front seat and contemplate their terrible weekend choices.
The foot chase didn’t last long, and LPD quickly apprehended our miniature track star. Both juveniles managed to rack up some moderate injuries during their grand adventure, earning them a mandatory detour to UMC for medical clearance before being booked into the Lubbock County Juvenile Justice Center.
We always knew Lubbock drivers had the emotional maturity and spatial awareness of a middle schooler, but it’s really community-minded of the LPD to provide us with literal, crash-tested proof.
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