Boy, 11, arrested in break-in

TACOMA — A Tacoma boy who stole a car and talked his way onto airline flights as a 9-year-old is in trouble again.

Semaj Booker, now 11, was arrested in connection with a weekend residential break-in. On Monday, a judge ordered him held in juvenile detention until at least July 17.

Pro-tem Judge John Hill also set that date for a hearing to determine whether the boy has the mental capacity to know right from wrong.

Pierce County prosecutors have charged the boy with one count of residential burglary, one count of third-degree malicious mischief and one count of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant.

Prosecutors said Semaj was arrested early Saturday.

The boy has twice made national headlines by traveling to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport alone and talking his way through security, most recently in May. In January 2007, he managed to make his way onto a flight from Seattle to Phoenix and from there to San Antonio. He said he wanted to be with his grandfather in Texas.

The day before his flight to Texas, the boy took a car and led police on a high-speed chase in Lakewood, near Tacoma. A judge convicted the boy of car theft last summer but said he wouldn't have to go to juvenile detention if he stayed out of trouble for a year.

After his May 27 adventure at the airport, a Superior Court judge told him to stay out of trouble and gave him another year of probation on the earlier offense.