A 5-year-old boy from Florida snuck out to Chick-fil-A alone while his parents were sleeping earlier this summer — and the sheriff’s office just released bodycam footage of the amusing incident. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office posted a video on September 1, 2025, on X, featuring the entertaining story of a young boy named William, who walked to a nearby Chick-fil-A restaurant alone without his parents noticing he was gone.
After Chick-fil-A employees called authorities, Patrol Officers Kelly and Perri arrived at the San Jose Boulevard eatery to find William “happily eating breakfast” with one of the restaurant’s managers. The boy pointed and explained that he lived “right across the street over there.” Once he finished his breakfast sandwich, Kelly led him to the back of his patrol car.
“Are you going to get me in jail?” the 5-year-old asked in the bodycam video. “No, I’m not going to put you in jail,” Kelly said with a laugh.
William and the two officers got into the vehicle and started driving around looking for his home. “He explained he had a white fence and that’s when we pulled up in the driveway,” Kelly recalled.
“And then we realized that the call box wasn’t working. We had no way to get through the gate,” Perri added in the video. “My initial thoughts were, ‘I can’t believe he came out of here.’ It’s the most secure house on that block in reference to having a fence all the way around the front, back, sides.”
After the men climbed over the fence, William’s parents, Phil and Victoria, were confused to find them knocking at their door. Perri informed William’s father that his son was found at the Chick-fil-A restaurant, to which the flabbergasted parent replied, “Are you kidding me?”
Perri recalled in the video, “You could just see the look on his face. It would be for any parent, including myself; it’s disbelief.”
Of the situation, Victoria admitted, “It’s kind of scary, actually, because we didn’t realize what was going on until after we came out.”
“I was worried about him. Because, was he scared? Was he crying? Was he upset?” Phil shared in the video. “He was quiet, which was unusual for him. I think it did shake him up some. So I don’t really think we needed to impress too much that she shouldn’t do it again, things like that. I think he understood that it was serious. But we did talk about it.”
Later, Victoria added,“I know he knows how to get to Chick-fil-A because we walk there. I would have never expected him to come down here on his own in the morning before anybody else in the house was up.”
To conclude the X post, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office stressed, “William’s parents are not in any trouble.”
“They had several safety measures in place,” the update noted. “But this is a good reminder to teach kids their home address, parents’ names, and a phone number. It could make a big difference in an emergency. A big thank-you to the Chick-fil-A employees who immediately called us and kept William safe until officers arrived.”
