DETROIT – April 10 was an adventurous day for 9-year-old Kyari Harris.
Harris, who goes by the nickname “King”, started his day at Nichols Elementary School on Detroit’s east side, and it ended at a McDonald’s in Lincoln Park.
It was the quick thinking of a DDOT bus driver and a group of Detroit police officers, who were honored on Thursday (April 30) morning by Mayor Mary Sheffield, that made sure he got back home.
“King got in trouble at school, and he knew he would be in trouble when he got home, so he just decided not to come home,” Mary Wynn, Harris’ mother, said on Thursday. “He went to what he would call his adventure.”
That “adventure” started that afternoon when he got off his normal school bus, cut through an alley, then hopped on a second DDOT bus that took him to the Rosa Parks Transportation Center in downtown Detroit.
“He’s never done this before,” Wynn said. “This is my only child. It was like a heart attack.”
“It was something kind of off on this, you know, I was just saying, like, why this kid is getting on my bus and by himself,” asked Thomas Burgan.
Burgan, who has driven for DDOT for six years, was driving the bus when he saw Harris board.
Surveillance footage from inside the bus shows Harris sitting in the back as the bus rolls along.
It starts to empty out as it heads to its last stop, where he spots Harris in the back, confused and holding a clear backpack.
That’s when word went over the radio to be on the lookout for a missing child.
“I said, ‘Man, that’s the kid,’” Burgan said. “He’s sitting in the back. I’m glad that he stayed on the bus until the end.”
Burgan can be seen asking Harris where he’s going. He quickly exits the bus and starts walking toward the nearby McDonald’s.
The bus cameras, along with Burgan’s cell phone, captured him walking away.
“When I took that last picture, I got back on the bus, and I called it in,” Burgan said. “I said, ‘Hey, this is the kid.’”
Harris eventually stopped at McDonald’s, where he was quickly arrested by police and returned to his mother.
While she was not happy about his little adventure, she was thankful to have him back.
“Thank God he was hungry, because if he wasn’t, there’s no telling how far, how much further he would have gone,” Wynn said. “I’m grateful for [Burgan]. I’m grateful that there were cameras on the bus.
“I never paid attention to the fact that there’s cameras on the bus,” Wynn added. “I thank the bus driver for going over and beyond.”