By Steven Symes 
When we were 12, we weren’t stealing cars and doing other crimes, but sadly for some kids that’s just a way of life. While we see stories of children even younger boosting vehicles, most of them don’t mention how little they get for all that trouble.
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But this story out of Michigan details out how the preteen suspect sold one of his ill-gotten rides for a mere $30. Surely that felt like a lot of money for one so young, but that’s unbelievable cheap, even for something that’s stolen.
The boy in question lives and stole in the city of Pontiac. Through the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, we leaned the youth was caught going through cars in a business’ parking lot. It’s not clear if those vehicles were locked and the kid gained entry by force or if he was just checking handles.
That’s a big deal because we’ve seen a number of thefts of cars because the owner was too lazy to take the key fob out of the cupholder. All someone has to do is try the handle, open the door, then press the start button and they can drive away.
If that isn’t how the kid stole the three or four vehicles he’s suspected of taking, he’s a fairly sophisticated thief.
When he was caught, he was carrying a plate from one of those stolen cars. Was it a trophy? Was he going to use it on another car? If the latter, that’s a really dumb plan, but the kid is only 12. It’s worse when grown adults do things like that.
A lot of people are wondering how a kid so young starts stealing cars. We don’t know what happened in this specific case, but we do know children as young as 8 are recruited by car theft rings, who teach them how to steal rides. That’s been fueling this problem for some time.
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