12-Year-Old And 17-Year-Old Arrested For Street Racing In Florida

A 12-year-old and a 17-year-old were arrested this week for allegedly street racing in Florida, officials said.

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office released a video that showed a deputy stopping two vehicles for street racing shortly before 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, in DeLand, only to find one of the drivers was too young to be licensed.

“I was just, I was going, I was testing,” the 12-year-old driver sputters when the deputy asks for his driver’s license. The deputy asks the boy’s age as he places him in handcuffs, and sounds shocked when he responds that he’s 12.

“My bad, sir,” the boy says.

The deputy turns to the 17-year-old’s vehicle and asks who the car belongs to, and he says it belongs to his mother.

“So she’s gonna be mad when it gets impounded today for racing on the highway?” the deputy asks.

“Yes, sir,” the boy says.

The deputy also speaks with with a 16-year-old passenger in one of the vehicles, who says they had just been fishing nearby, and asks to call his mother.

The 12-year-old’s mother arrives at the scene and the deputy explains to her that both cars were “racing towards me” side by side.

The mother says something unintelligible, to which the deputy responds, “I cannot slap them.”

“Me?” she asks, apparently indicating that she means she might slap him.

“That’s your child,” the deputy says with surprise. “Corporal punishment’s completely illegal.”

A man arrives on the scene and says the “fast Corolla” driven by the 17-year-old belongs to him.

“Well he was racing a 12-year-old,” the deputy says. “So, he’s getting arrested today.”

The man and a woman seem surprised, and the deputy confirms that “racing on a roadway is illegal.”

“How fast were they going?” the man asks.

“It doesn’t matter!” the deputy says. “They lined up down there, I’m parked on the side of the road watching traffic and they come racing towards me. I’m not driving an unmarked car. I’m in a completely marked patrol car and they come racing at me.”

The man tries to talk the deputy out of arresting the teen.

“He’s not physically getting arrested and going to jail,” the deputy assures the man, “but he’s gonna get a crim cite [criminal citation] and he’s gonna have to go to court.”

Both young drivers were arrested and cited, though the sheriff’s office did not release their names or the specific citations.