BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Police have released new details in the fatal crash which took the life of an unidentified 14-year-old boy in North Buffalo late Sunday evening.
The accident happened around 11:30 p.m. near the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Amherst Street.
Buffalo Police said officers from the D-District observed a vehicle traveling south on Elmwood Avenue near Hertel at a high rate of speed. They said the officers tried to catch up to the vehicle for a traffic stop and eventually activated their lights and sirens.
Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said so far from what they have determined by viewing city surveillance cameras it was not an actual police pursuit.
He says the stolen vehicle then ran a red light at the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Amherst Street. It crashed broadside into another car that was traveling east on Amherst Street. It then spun around and hit a third vehicle that was traveling north on Elmwood Avenue, according to investigators. Police say fortunately the people in those other cars only suffered minor injuries.
Gramaglia says data recovered by a vehicle measurement device indicated the vehicle was traveling over 75 miles per hour and perhaps up to 83 miles per hour shortly before the crash.
The driver of the vehicle, a 14-year-old male from Buffalo, was taken to ECMC by ambulance where he was pronounced dead. The unidentified teen was said to be a student at Southside Elementary School.
Buffalo Police says he was driving a 2017 Hyundai Elantra which had been stolen previously elsewhere in the city earlier on Sunday evening. Police say there is other video showing other individual in the car including someone who appears to be hanging out of the passenger window. The car was also take from a location where another stolen car had been abandoned with those individuals observed on camera jumping from one car to the other.
Murray Holman, executive director for Stop The Violence Coalition, said it’s important other teens in the community understand what happened.
“To lose his life for a joy ride? It had to be a joy ride because he was 14. Crazy, crazy,” Holman said. “We’re trying to keep kids away from guns, but cars are dangerous. It could have been avoided if you just had the opportunity just to talk to the kid.”
The Buffalo Police Accident Investigation Unit, Internal Affairs Division are continuing the investigation into the crash. The New York State Attorney General's Office has also been contacted as part of an overall investigation under NYS law.
Commissioner Gramaglia says this unfortunately fits the disturbing pattern of vehicle thefts by underage car thieves. He did offer his condolences to the victim's family noting this was a tragedy that should not have happened.