DUMAS, Ark. – The mother of a 10-year-old Dumas boy faces a curfew violation after her son drove off with a school bus after a Friday night football game and led police on a 40-mile chase, authorities say.
Police released the fourth-grader at Dumas Elementary School to his parents after the pursuit along a rural Arkansas highway that include road spikes and officers from three counties, four towns and the state police. Officials say a driver left keys inside of the bus during the Dumas-Warren football game.
The boy could face theft charges over the chase, which reached speeds of 75 mph at times. Despite road spikes, the bus kept traveling north toward Little Rock along U.S. 65 through Desha and Lincoln counties, then into the next county of Jefferson.
Surveillance cameras did not capture the bus leaving the lot.
The Arkansas Department of Human Services is assisting with the investigation, which police acknowledge is complicated by the boy's age.
"The child is only ten, and that's a scenario that doesn't come up — and we have a lot of legal questions and a lot of social questions too," Dumas police Lt. Michael Donigan told Little Rock television station KATV.
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