Drunk 12-year-old girl arrested for stealing grandfather’s car after high-speed police chase

Girl and three friends aged 13 and under drove off after police tried to pull car over before crashing into speed limit sign

A drunk 12-year-old girl has been arrested for stealing her grandfather’s car and leading police on a high-speed chase before crashing into a speed limit sign, according to reports.

The girl and her three friends, aged between 12 and 13, drove off when police officers in New Mexico tried to pull their car over, local news station KKTV reported.

New Mexico's Alamogordo Police Department said they did not realise the driver was a child until they surrounded the car and the girls came out with their hands held in the air.

The driver admitted to stealing her grandfather’s car after he fell asleep and then picking up her friends in the vehicle, according to KKTV.

Police found a bottle of Smirnoff vodka and cans of alcoholic iced tea in the car.

The four girls were charged with underage drinking, while the driver was handed additional charges for driving while intoxicated and leading police on a chase.

In police footage of the driver’s father visiting the police station after her arrest, an officer says: "We're trying to figure out where they got it from.”

"That's what I want to know, because we don't drink at my house,” the father replies, before adding: "If you've got to keep her in jail tonight, if you think it's right, do it.”

Police Chief Brian Peete told CBS Albuquerque: “For young folks to get a hold of A, alcohol, and then B, a vehicle, and then adding them both together, normally this situation is very... often it doesn't work out as well as it did in this case.”

He added: “There's a lot of mixed emotions with it because we don't know the situation, the dynamics at home."