Before the sun was fully up and long before the rest of his family stirred, William, a 5-year-old boy in Jacksonville, Florida, quietly climbed out of bed and decided his parents deserved a little more sleep. He felt hungry, and rather than wake anyone, the preschooler settled on a plan that made perfect sense to him: he would take himself out for breakfast.
Moments later he slipped out of the house, through a gate, and padded barefoot down the block to the nearby Chick-fil-A he knew from weekend outings.
In body camera footage, released by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO), William, still in his nightshirt, appears utterly at ease, his small legs swinging beneath the table as he sipped a drink and worked his way through a box of chicken minis, which the Chick-fil-A manager had quietly provided free of charge.
When Officers Ryan Perri and Bryan Kelly of JSO’s District 3 arrived to take William home, the little boy assured them he knew exactly where he lived. “Right across the street, right over there” he told them, gesturing toward a nearby wall.
After finishing his meal, William followed the officers into the parking lot, pausing as the police cruiser came into view. He took it in, seeming to weigh what this morning adventure might mean.
“I opened the back door and he looked at and me and said, “Am I going to jail?’” Officer Kelly tells TODAY.com, laughing at the memory.
Once William was buckled into the cruiser, the officers began the slow roll through his neighborhood, looking for a “green house with a white fence,” that he had confidently described, Officer Kelly said.
William, 5, took himself out for Chick-fil-A while his family slept.Courtesy William’s family
However, the search quickly hit a snag. “Most of the houses had white fences and none were green,” Kelly says. So they switched strategies and asked William to point. This time, it worked.
William’s father, Phil, identified only by his first name for privacy, said he was still in his pajamas when he answered the door, startled to find two men in blue standing on his doorstep.
“The officer asked, ‘Do you have a son named Liam Jefferson?’ And I said, ‘I have a son, William Jefferson, he’s in bed,’” Phil tells TODAY.
Then, he said, the truth hit him like a jolt. “I immediately thought, Wait. Where is he?!’”
Body camera footage shows William’s mom Victoria on the driveway in her bathrobe, with Phil beside her, both trying to understand how their early riser had slipped out unnoticed. As the sheriff’s office noted in a social media post, “William’s parents are not in any trouble. They had several safety measures in place.”
“He was quiet,” Phil says. “He’s usually talkative, so the fact that he was quiet meant he knew something serious had happened. He said he wasn’t going to do it again.”
During the interview, Phil praised Officers Perri and Kelly for how they handled the situation, noting their “professionalism and kindness” throughout.
The incident happened in September, and in the months since, they’ve become far more disciplined about setting the house alarm.
“You usually think about keeping the bad guys out — not the good people in!” Phil says. And as for whether William has now learned his phone number and address. He chuckles. “We’re still working on it … but yes.”