A 12-year-old boy who yearned to travel swiped a school bus and took it on a 100-mile suburban joy ride, stealing a tankful of gas and damaging the vehicle along the way.
Police said they think the boy drove the bus through the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs of Plymouth, Golden Valley, West St. Paul and White Bear Lake Monday night. Police caught up with him early Tuesday when he returned to Forest Lake and the bus was spotted driving erratically.The boy stopped for gasoline at one point but did not pay.
"We also have a list of things he possibly could have collided with, but we know of no other vehicles that were damaged," Forest Lake Police Chief David Schwartz said.
Police believe the boy took the keys from the bus, which has an automatic transmission, when it was parked outside a school district garage Monday, and then drove the vehicle off that night. He did not attend classes that day and his parents reported him missing late that night.
No decision had been made whether to charge the youth, who was released to his parents. The bus sustained about $2,000 damage.