Joy ride proves costly for 15-year-old
Paying back a dollar owed ended up being a high price to pay for a 15-year-old who found himself in juvenile court for taking a recent joy ride and crashing his mother’s pickup.
The teen, whose name has not been released by police due his juvenile status, was charged with leaving the scene of an accident with injury for the incident which left his mother’s car wrecked and another man in the emergency room.
According to police reports, the teen admitted he took his mother’s Ford Ranger after seeing the keys in the ignition. He drove it around all day until deciding to go to the mall for some shopping. The teen said he went to Goody’s and was going to buy a shirt when he found he was $1 short. An unidentified man in the checkout line offered to loan the boy a dollar so he could buy the shirt.
Moments later the same man asked the teen for a ride home, a favor the boy agreed to since he had just loaned him the money. It was as he was heading toward the man’s home, the teen, who reportedly did not have a driver’s license, pulled in front of a Jeep driven by Jimmy E. Sutherland, 32, at the intersection of the bypass and Red Road.
The crash left Sutherland with noncritical injuries while the teen and his passenger escaped injury. The teen later told police his passenger fled the scene before the 15-year-old himself bolted, running back to the mall. The teen said he left the scene because he was scared. He reportedly confessed to the whole ordeal when police arrived at his home later in the evening.