11-year-old Kareem Granton, who was found on the subway yesterday by a good samaritan who alerted police (and K9) officers that he looked like the child on a missing poster, reportedly ran away from his East New York home because he didn't want to clean up after his dog.
"I just had a tantrum in the moment, a type of anger problem," Granton told reporters yesterday. "So I just wanted to express it in a different way."
Granton didn't believe anyone but his mother would be looking for him. He had a friend, Eric Steward, act as a lookout when he snuck away last Wednesday.
“He was like, 'Well it’s time for me to go, can you check the hallway and make sure there’s nobody that knows me that can tell my mom that I'm here?' " Steward told NBC. "So I did, and he went down the staircase." Granton covered his tracks well. He spent most of the five days he was missing on the subway, and had about $10 on him when he was found.
"He was tired, he was hungry,” Police Officer Dennis Grimm told reporters upon finding Granton. Officer Grimm took Granton to McDonalds before reuniting him with his mother.
“I knew my mom was looking for me," Granton said. "I didn’t know it would turn into this big of a situation.” Granton explained that he was too scared of being in trouble to call his mother, even though he knew her phone number.
His family said Granton has run away before, but never for this long.
