Posted on 10/14/2022 1:34:27 PM PDT by simpson96
OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. — Deputies arrested a Florida man who is accused of asking a child to drive him home.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that a witness saw a vehicle all over the road, and suspected the driver was impaired. The witness cut off the vehicle and noticed that a child was driving the car. The witness then got the child to get into the passenger seat and parked the car in a nearby parking lot.(snip)
Deputies said the 9-year-old told them that Alexander Berrios, 22, had asked the child to drive him home, and even pointed out directions along the nearly 7-mile trip. When the witness stopped the car, the child said he was on his way back to his own home alone, and had driven nearly 3 miles.
In an arrest report obtained by WKRG, deputies said that when they interviewed Berrios at his home, he initially denied knowing the child or the child’s mother, and denied leaving his home at all the night before, WKRG reported.
Berrios’ father gave deputies video showing Berrios arriving home and entering the back door just before 7:45 a.m., WKRG reported.
Deputies said in the news release that Berrios told them that his decision was “a mistake” but would not elaborate.
Deputies said that when they contacted the 9-year-old’s mother, she was unaware that her son had left the house.
Investigators said the child’s mother told deputies that Berrios had been at their home the night before drinking alcohol, WKRG reported. The mother said that Berrios had stayed the night, and she realized she was gone at “some point in the morning.”
Berrios was charged with child neglect without great bodily harm.
(Excerpt) Read more at wftv.com ...
Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
I think cry would be more appropriate when you consider that many who might find a 9 year old driving a car inappropriate would also not hesitate to support putting that same kid on puberty blockers, hormones, and surgically mutilating that very same child.
Well at least he didn’t ask an 8 year to drive him home.
At about that age I drove a tractor to town to see Grandpa. Got in trouble. I worked on that 40 JD on the farm so didn’t see any problem driving it to town. Cops thought different.
Wasn’t there a story here a year or so ago about some German guy who had a 9-year-old nephew or grandson running a front-end loader at a quarry? The kid there didn’t take the loader out on the road, but a lot of busybodies were all upset anyway. The German guy said the kid was a pretty good operator.
Love that guy! RIP.
I am more inclined to believe that the 9 year old was a fairly good driver, I was a good one at that age growing up around farms and driving dirt bikes. The witness performed an illegal stop and a kidnapping basically, then call the police on a driving without a license charge. Sorry, but he could have taken the kid and parent home and kept his or her mouth shut.
What a pussy country this has become...
Learned to drive at 9 (1942) and when I was 10 (1943) I was allowed to drive (by myself) 6 miles to the store for grandma & grandpa...
At 12 (1945) I had a driver’s license and I had two old cars and drove my brother & me to school...
Back in the ‘70s, a drive on a highway in a rural area was torture for young folks driving from a larger city. Local yocals would drive snail slow. With plenty of blind hills and curves, passing opportunities were rare. So a kid who had been driving on a nearby farm or gravel road for plenty of practice was relatively safe.
Whole different world of people now. Local yocals drive fast, and most of them are from big, crooked northeastern or western cities. Most of them have “custom” farmers (contractors, share croppers) to do their work for them, while they push for more NIMBY laws to regulate against property rights for others.
Well at least it wasn’t Biden. 😏
Couldn’t be any worse than our snowbirds here.
How do you know it’s fall in Arizona?
The license plates change colors.
I watch farm videos and the farmers have their 9 and 10 year olds driving grain trucks and combines and pickup trucks and racing cars at tracks.
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