A Florida state trooper spotted something in Lakeland yesterday that would stop any parent in their tracks: an 8-year-old standing barefoot and alone in the middle of a busy road.
According to an incident report from the Florida Highway Patrol, the trooper saw the boy around 11:30 a.m. on Kathleen Road after finishing a traffic stop.
The boy was sweating heavily, the trooper wrote, standing in the 88-degree weather with a sweatshirt and sweatpants on but no shoes. He held a plastic bag with a can of Pringles and a soda and told the trooper he had just left the gas station and was going back home.
What was especially worrying was that the child wasn’t at a crosswalk but was waiting in a grassy median in the center of a busy, four-lane road.
He told the trooper that his mom was at home, tanning, with his two older sisters. She did not know he went to the store and told him he had 30 minutes to play outside and get back home, the report said.
The trooper noted that the boy was very polite and respectful, but worried about getting himself and his mom in trouble. Fortunately, the boy wasn’t injured or hurt in any way, but he was in danger of being abducted or struck by a passing car until the trooper arrived, the report said.
The Lakeland Police Department took custody of the child and took over the rest of the investigation. A spokesperson for the police department said that the boy “left his nearby apartment complex without his parent’s permission,” and that no charges are expected at this time.