Thread: 9-year-old runaway flies from Seattle to San Antonio via Pho

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9-year-old runaway flies from Seattle to San Antonio via Phoenix

LAKEWOOD, Wash. -- A 9-year-old boy who didn't like his suburban Tacoma home stole a car(got into a high speed chase with police), got caught, then ran away again and flew to San Antonio with a plane change in Phoenix before he was arrested, authorities said.


Investigators and Southwest Airlines officials were trying to determine how Semaj Booker, who was trying to get to his grandfather in Texas, made his way through security and onto the airplane.

Booker apparently found a Southwest Airlines boarding card and made it through airport security Tuesday, hopping two separate flights but landing in San Antonio, Texas _ short of his Dallas destination, police said.

Southwest Airlines' boarding policy, which invites people to board in groups instead of by assigned seats, may have aided the boy, Lakewood police Lt. David Guttu said Wednesday. Guttu said he didn't know if the boy had a ticket.

Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the airline was as baffled as the police.

"I've never heard of anything like this before," McInnis said. "That's why we're looking into this internally and working with the authorities to determine exactly what happened."

Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Jennifer Peppin told The News Tribune of Tacoma travelers must have a boarding pass to go through airport security checkpoints, although adults can use an escort pass to bring young children or seniors to a flight gate.

"That young man would've had to have a boarding pass," Peppin said.

The 80-pound, 4-foot-9 fourth-grader, held in juvenile detention Tuesday night in San Antonio, was "incredibly motivated to get to Texas," Guttu told The News Tribune. "He doesn't want to live in Washington state."

Guttu told The Associated Press that the Pierce County prosecutor planned to seek a juvenile arrest warrant for Booker on Wednesday, charging him with "felony elude" and possession of stolen properties. The charges would be sent to San Antonio, but Guttu wasn't sure what the next step would be.

"We really don't extradite juveniles. So that's going to be interesting. We'll see what happens," he said. "The police department's main job is to coordinate the warrant and coordinate his return as a missing juvenile."

The boy's mother, Sakinah Booker, told The News Tribune he dislikes the neighborhood where the family lives and is afraid of a sex offender who lives nearby.

"He does not like it here at all," she said.

She said she was told the boy wound up in San Antonio rather than Dallas, his intended destination, because he boarded the wrong plane in Phoenix. She also said she had hoped to move her four sons back to Dallas soon, but Semaj grew tired of waiting.

Guttu said Child Protective Services had visited the Booker family sometime in the past few months at the request of the mother and another person, but the boy was not removed from the home.

Guttu said the diminutive boy's odyssey began Sunday when he stole an Acura that was left running outside a neighbor's house, only to be spotted by police near the interchange of Interstate 5 and State Route 512.

Police pursued young Booker on Highway 512 at 80 to 90 mph until he took an exit and the engine blew, after which the car went over a curb and coasted into a tree.

He refused to come out of the car, so officers broke a window to unlock a door and immediately recognized him as a frequent runaway and car thief, Guttu said. Last month he also crashed a stolen car before being caught by police in Tacoma, and more recently he was caught in Seattle in a stolen car that had run out of gas, his mother said.

She believes he learned to drive from playing video games on a PlayStation.

Because of those earlier episodes, she said, she had told police not to bring him home if he got into more trouble, but after the latest episode officials at Remann Hall, Pierce County's juvenile detention center, refused to admit him, partly because of his young age.

"Putting a 9-year-old in our facility with our population is not a good thing," said Shelly Maluo, the county's juvenile court administrator.

As a result, he was taken home again, but by 6 a.m. Monday he again had been reported missing. The next day, Guttu said, police got a call from a juvenile lockup in San Antonio saying, "we've got your runaway."

He said the boy was arrested as he got off a Southwest plane from Phoenix, but it was unclear how police in San Antonio learned he was on the flight. The boy initially gave a false name before admitting his true identity, Guttu said.

Deputy Prosecutor Fred C. Wist said Tuesday he had not decided whether to file charges in the car theft and police chase Sunday.

"It is very seldom that we see kids this young," he said.

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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Homeland Security ROFL

Originally Posted by jimpasz

Homeland Security ROFL