Fedorovekb/iStock(ALAMOGORDO, N.M.) — A 12-year-old girl has been arrested in New Mexico for drunk driving and leading officers on a high-speed chase before losing control of the steering and smashing into a speed limit sign, officials said this week.
New Mexico’s Alamogordo Police Department said the 12-year-old was driving with her three friends, ages 12 and 13, in the car.
Police said the girl told them that she waited for her grandfather, with whom she was staying at the time, to fall asleep so she could take his car.
Bodycam footage released by police shows officers breaking into the vehicle to get the girl and her friends out after the pursuit.
The driver was charged with DWI and her friends were also charged with underage drinking.
It remains unclear how the girl and her friends got the alcohol, but cans of Twisted Tea, a malted alcoholic beverage, were recovered from the car, Alamogordo Police Chief Brian Peete told ABC News.
“It’s concerning,” Peete said. “We are grateful that no one was seriously hurt. But it is concerning that someone so young would put themselves and others in harms way.”
The names of the youths involved have not been released, due to their age.
Peete told the Alamogordo Daily News that his department is working closely with the local school system as a part of a “comprehensive approach to disciplinary action.”
“We’re using a coordinated effort to get to the bottom of this,” Peete told the newspaper.
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