Arlington Hts. 'candy boy' walked nearly a mile

Carlos I. Gil was driving home from his job as a disc jockey at an Elgin bar when he saw what he thought was a plastic bag blowing down the middle of Arlington Heights Road.

Then he noticed the legs.

Turns out, the bag was a determined 4-year-old boy with a sweet tooth, walking down the middle of the four-lane road near Rand Road at 1:30 a.m. on Monday.

The boy had his sights set on the Speedway gas station at 1902 N. Arlington Heights Road, a 24-hour station where he'd gone to get candy with his mom in the past.

“I couldn't believe it, it was a little kid,” said Gil, a 31-year-old Mount Prospect resident. “I closed my eyes and shook my head. I thought I was seeing things.”

Gil, a nursing assistant at a Wheeling nursing home during the day, called 911. He pulled alongside the boy who, by this time, had crossed over to the sidewalk but was still intent on making it to the gas station.

“I rolled down my window and asked him where he was going and he just pointed to the gas station,” Gil said. “I told him to wait a second.”

Before the Arlington Heights police arrived, Gil spotted a Cook County sheriff's car, and waved it down. The deputy went to talk to the boy, who was taken to the hospital for a checkup and released with a clean bill of health, said Capt. Nicholas Pecora of the Arlington Heights Police Department.

Later, officers followed the boy's boot prints in the snow to a first floor apartment on the 400 block of Circle Hill Drive, about three-quarters of a mile from the gas station.

According to reports, the boy's mother was asleep when her son decided to take a stroll. She told police there is an alarm that sounds when the boy leaves the bedroom, but it didn't wake her up; nor did she hear the boy pulling on his winter coat and boots and leave though a sliding-glass door.

Police notified the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services but they did not press charges, said Pecora.

He said the situation left the boy's mom “pretty embarrassed” but Gil a hero.

“He absolutely did the right thing,” Pecora said. “With Stranger Danger you don't want to put your hands on a kid. Flagging down an officer is always the better option.”