Teen killed when stolen car crashes into Lawrence building

(Mark Wilson/Globe Staff)

Friends mourned today at a makeshift shrine at the scene of the accident.

By Brian R. Ballou, Globe Staff

LAWRENCE -- A teenager who grew up on the city's south side was killed in a single-car crash early today after he drove a stolen car into a brick building downtown.

Joel Abreu cq, 18, was driving a 1997 Ford Taurus that is registered to a Lawrence man. Police said the crash at about 3:47 a.m. came just seconds after a state trooper had attempted to get the teen to pull the car over because the vehicle's lights weren't on and it had a broken side-view mirror.

The crash woke several people living in second- and third-story apartments in the building near the intersection of Lawrence Street and Common Streets.

According to witnesses, emergency crews had to rip apart the car with heavy cutting tools to extricate the victim.

David Procopio, a State Police spokesman, said that the trooper had not been chasing the car.

Hours after the crash, many of Abreu's friends set candles and flowers where the accident occurred, and wrote solemn poems and messages on the sidewalk with a black marker.

Carmen Morales, a neighbor at the Beacon Court Housing Development, took her toddler grandson, Jean-Carlos Martinez, to the scene. She leaned on a parked car and cried while gazing at the candles, set in the shape of a cross.

"Joel used to come over and play with my grandson, who was always happy to see him,'' she said.

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