A Charlotte mother says her 6-year-old son ran out of his elementary school and toward a busy road this past spring, after staff surrounded him in the cafeteria during a dispute over a cup of ice cream. Brittney Gooding says her son Luka, who has autism and ADHD, fled Long Creek Elementary School's building in May 2026 and headed toward Beatties Ford Road, telling his mother afterward that he felt unsafe.
Gooding rushed to the school after being told staff were in active pursuit of her son, according to WBTV. She said she was thankful Luka was found safe, but the relief didn't erase her questions about how the situation escalated in the first place. Gooding is now speaking out publicly, and her account marks the second time in recent weeks that a parent has come forward describing a child wandering off the same Huntersville campus.
The station reports that a school document described Luka beginning to move and flail in the cafeteria line after he was asked to throw away his ice cream. According to the same account, he pinched two staff members and was moved away from other students for their safety, then threw a carton of milk and did not comply with directions to leave the cafeteria before running out of the building. Luka received a two-day suspension following the incident.
Security Footage Raises New Questions
Gooding asked to view cafeteria security camera footage and was able to watch it two days later, per the report. She said the footage showed multiple staff members surrounding Luka, with staff members taking the ice cream from his hands and throwing it away. Gooding said the crowding and removal of the ice cream is what triggered her son's flight, and she told the station there is a way to reach compliance without physical intervention.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said the matter was shared with appropriate team members for review, but the district said it could not share specific details because the matter involves personnel and student privacy.
Gooding said staff understanding of Luka's condition and needs slipped through the cracks, and she is now considering transferring him to another school. She also said parents of children with special needs should know about the incident, a sentiment that echoes concerns raised just days earlier by another Long Creek parent.
A Second Family, The Same Campus
Gooding's decision to come forward followed Hoodline's earlier reporting on a September 17 incident in which a 5-year-old nonverbal autistic kindergartner wandered off Long Creek's campus during a recess lineup transition and was safely returned by a neighbor. In that case, Trinity Taylor, the kindergartner's mother, said she had previously alerted school officials to her son's risk of eloping. Long Creek Elementary, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Creative Arts Magnet campus, serves roughly 500 pre-K through fifth-grade students.
Transition periods such as cafeteria visits and recess lineups represent high-risk windows for elopement among special-needs students, and the cited North Carolina Department of Public Instruction policy addresses settings in which supplementary aids and services may be provided to students with disabilities, per Hoodline's prior reporting. Under North Carolina General Statutes § 115C-391.1, known as the Deborah Greenblatt Act, school employees may only use physical restraint or force when reasonably necessary to protect safety, quell a disturbance threatening injury, or act in self-defense, and must promptly report physical interventions to administrators.
Elopement Is a Known Risk for Autistic Children
The two Long Creek cases fit into a much larger, well-documented pattern. National Autism Association surveillance data indicates that roughly 49% of children with autism spectrum disorder attempt to elope from safe environments, with nearly a third of wandering incidents occurring directly from a school setting. A 2020 study by Wiggins et al. found that 60% of children ages 4 to 5 with autism wandered at least sometimes over a three-month period, compared with 25% of children with other developmental disabilities.
For now, Gooding says she is weighing whether Long Creek remains the right placement for Luka, and she wants other families with special-needs children at the school to have the full picture of what happened. CMS has not indicated whether its internal review will result in any changes to cafeteria or transition supervision procedures.
