Police Pursue 10-Year-Old Truck Driver

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Ken Haynes was on his way to work Tuesday at St. Vincent Health System when he noticed who was at the wheel of a furniture truck traveling east on Interstate 630 in west Little Rock.

“I looked over and said, ‘My God, it’s a kid driving that truck,’” Haynes said. “I was scared to death he was going to hurt himself.”

The driver was indeed quite young, police say – a 10-year-old boy with “emotional problems” who fled from a stopped school bus and stole the truck as it sat waiting to be loaded at an office-furniture store.

Haynes alerted a state trooper to the situation, and the officer began pursuing the truck as it looped back on a city street toward the site where it had been taken. Passing that spot, the boy at the wheel entered I-630 again, but heading west.

The pursuit never exceeded 40 mph.

“He wasn’t driving really fast, but he was weaving,” Haynes said.

Eventually, the truck slid off I-630 into the median and became mired in mud.

State Police Lt. Mike Foster said the boy was frightened and wouldn’t open the truck’s door, so the officer broke the door’s window and turned off the ignition.

A woman listed in the police report as the boy’s guardian said the youngster was fine after being treated at a hospital for some scratches from the broken glass.

Bradford Montgomery, director of transportation for the Little Rock School district, said the boy was the only passenger on a bus being driven by Raymond Gachot, 75. Montgomery said “the student bolted” after Gachot stopped the bus because the youngster was being unruly and wouldn’t stay in his seat.

The bus was taking the boy to a facility that provides behavioral health services for children and their families, police said.