A Port Arthur juvenile’s wild ride through the heart of our city this week endangered many citizens and may threaten or slow delivery of essential services to some of the area’s neediest residents.

That’s why it’s important that Port Arthur people consider such crimes — this was a crime, not a prank, despite the suspect’s age — not as isolated incidents but for the effects they visit upon the population as a whole.

Thursday afternoon’s exercise in law breaking started with the theft of a meals-on-wheels van and ended with injuries to two people at Thomas Boulevard and Florida Avenue.

The van, essential to delivery of meals to the poor and elderly, was badly damaged. The victims’ vehicle took a sharp blow and may be beyond repair. But everyone who walked, drove or was a bystander to the high-speed chase, from Turtle Creek to its conclusion, was put at risk by a reckless driver who held no apparent consideration for the health and well-being of others.

One witness said she followed the suspect driver at the behest of the van’s lawful driver. She said the suspect driver sped through crowded business zones and residential neighborhoods, running red lights and traveling at rates of speed that revealed a callous disregard for the safety of his fellow human beings. This was no “joy ride”; this was a mobile threat to that health and property of any law-abiding citizen in his path.

That includes the safety of police officers — don’t forget them — who had to pursue the fleeing vehicle and drivers who found themselves inadvertently in the path of the juvenile, a 15-year-old who is well known to police. That the victims’ injuries were said to be minor and limited to just two people was fortunate. But those injuries probably weren’t considered minor to the lawful drivers who sustained them. The victims and those who love them had much at risk at the intersection of Thomas and Florida, and only by good fortune are they healthy enough today to move forward in their lives.

This was the second high-speed chase we in this office have seen on Memorial Boulevard this year. The first ended with serious, permanent injuries to innocent people. This one held similar potential.

The suspect faces charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle and felony evading. He’s sitting in Minnie Rogers Juvenile Justice Center. It’s uncertain whether he will be tried as an adult.

The courts must make some hard decisions: Is this suspect’s — or any suspect’s — freedom worth the demonstrated risk to which he has willingly placed other people?

We’re well past the days when Port Arthur people, as generous as any, believed that no youngster poses a threat to his fellow citizens. Some youngsters prove they do.