<p>He also stole a bag from the carousel in order to cover up absconding without paying for a meal? That’s an incredible level of dishonesty for 9 years old.</p>
<p>Given his resourcefulness and apparent cleverness, one can only wonder what he might have accomplished in Las Vegas had it not been for that nervous nelly flight crew. :)<br>
Paging Mr Papa-giorgo. </p>
<p>I wonder if he came from a decently well-off family. You’d think the airport would’ve been a little intimidating to him if he hadn’t been somewhat familiar with flying.</p>
<p>Kid is from my area so there is a lot of local news about it. He took the light rail to the airport two days in a row (practice run the first day, perhaps). He did get screened at security but made it through, presumably, he blended in with a large family. He has been classified as a runaway per the Mpls police. One report said he was going to meet an “online friend” in Vegas. Scary on so many levels. 9 year old is way too wise (and unsupervised) for his age in my opinion. Thankfully, he did not meet his online friend at the other end; that person is likely not well-intentioned.</p>
<p>Maybe the police should look into the online friend…although it seems likely that the kid probably did not represent himself as a 9 year old online. Sometimes being precociously intelligent carries special risks, which clearly are amplified by modern technology.</p>
<p>I agree that there’s a lot here to look into. My kids flew a lot when they were young. But I’m pretty sure they could not have found their own way to the airport when they were 9. Then make it through security, steal a meal and make it onto a flight. He obviously doesn’t have enough supervision. Where did the parents think he was the day before?</p>
<p>Momof2kids, since he was from your area & was a runaway, Im assuming that before he was caught there was media attention regarding a 9 yr old boy who was lost/ kidnapped/ run away?</p>
<p>ek - no news about a missing kid before the plane news. I infer from the local news to date, that the kid was in his Mpls “family home” but very unsupervised. It appears that he was not even missed until discovered on the plane. He was classified as a runaway for a technical reason. The family could not just fly out and pick him up at LV airport; he had to get processed. News this morning said he was still in custody in LV, so perhaps the appropriateness of the home here is under question.</p>
<p>Perhaps he will end up in a better home environment and it MAY end up being a good thing. When my kids were 9, neither ever had any ideas about flying anywhere on their own and would have been missed if they weren’t with us or their school. If they were unaccounted for no longer than 30 minutes, alarms would have been sounded. Sounds like this kid has had very little or no supervision in his young life.</p>