13-Year-Old Dead, Sister Blamed For Trying Stunt Driving Move
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - Friends are responding with sadness and police are issuing a warning following the death of a teenage passenger who was killed when his sister allegedly tried a stunt driving action.
Noe Gonzalez, 13, died Sunday night in Aurora after a car police say was driven by his sister slammed into an unoccupied trailor home. The crash happened on Potomac Street north of Colfax Avenue.
Gonzalez was one of three passengers in the car. Police say the driver, his 16-year-old sister Monica, doesn't have a driver's license.
Aurora police say the Aurora Central High School was practicing a J-turn. That's when the driver yanks on the emergency brake a high rate of speed and the car spins 180 degrees.
Monica was listed in critical condition after the crash. The other two passengers were also hurt.
On Monday night heartbroken friends placed balloons and stuffed animals on the spot where Gonzales lost his life.
"We're all very devastated," said Taviare Connor, Gonzalez's friend. "He was very nice and loving and I feel just really bad that he's gone."
Gonzalez attended North Middle School. His friend there Alfredo Gonzales said he was something special.
"He had a lot of friends," Gomez said. "He was the type of person that when you met him you had to be his friend because he was an awesome kid."
Shattered glass still lines the ground where Gonzalez lost his life, and police are hoping his friends have learned a lesson about getting behind the wheel.
"Having kids drive beyond their capabilities and pushing cars to limits, that's not new. It has to do with the inexperience, and part of that that -- we all did as we grew up -- that we're invincible, and nothing's ever going to happen to us," Aurora police spokesman Lt. Chuck DeShazer said.
The mobile home has been unoccupied for at least the last three years. Police say the impact was strong enough to break the straps holding the mobile home in place. It was so powerful it shifted the home four feet off its concrete blocks.
"Slow down. That car is a bullet and you're ultimately responsible for where it lands," DeShazer said.
The other injured occupants were identified as Arturo Martinez and Luna Robles, 16.
