A 12-year-old Fresno County boy driving his family’s minivan saw his planned road trip cut short when he hit a spike strip laid down by sheriff’s deputies.
He had planned a 200-mile drive from Hanford to Sacramento, where he used to live, said a report from the Fresno County sheriff’s office.
The boy was first noticed around 9:30 a.m. Monday in the Riverdale area, northwest of Hanford. A sheriff’s deputy on patrol saw a cloud of dust ahead of him on the road; when he got to the site, a witness said a minivan had run into a roadside advertising sign and driven off.
When the deputy caught up to the minivan, the driver refused to pull over, the sheriff’s report said. During the pursuit, the boy allegedly ran stop signs, drove on the wrong side of the road and avoided spike strips laid in his path.
About 40 miles after the Riverdale sighting, the driver came across a sheriff’s sergeant laying down another spike strip on a rural road south of Mendota. The boy allegedly swerved toward the officer, then ran over the spikes.
The disabled van stopped about a mile down the road, and the boy was arrested.
He was booked into Juvenile Hall on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, auto theft and evading police. Nobody was injured during the pursuit.
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