15-Year-Old Among 3 Killed After Stolen Car Packed With 7 Slams Into Semi

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Three people were killed and four others were seriously injured early Tuesday when a stolen car carrying seven people slammed into a semitrailer near the University of Minnesota campus, Minneapolis police said.

Officers were called to the crash on Southeast Fourth Street near Interstate 35W around 4:12 a.m. and found all seven occupants trapped inside a stolen Hyundai Elantra, according to police.

Two males in the front seats and a female in the back seat died at the scene.

Minneapolis firefighters freed the four other passengers from the rear seat: two 18-year-old men, a 17-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy.

All four were taken by ambulance to Hennepin Healthcare with potentially life-threatening injuries.

Preliminary information shows the Elantra struck the trailer of a tractor-trailer that was heading south off the I-35W exit ramp and crossing Southeast Fourth Street, police said.

The car became wedged beneath the trailer, and both vehicles came to rest on Ninth Avenue Southeast between Southeast Fourth Street and University Avenue Southeast.

Investigators believe the stolen car's speed contributed to the crash.

The semi driver was not hurt and cooperated with officers.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office has identified one of those killed as 15-year-old Calvin Robert Wolfe, the Star Tribune reported. A person briefed by law enforcement told the newspaper that the driver and front-seat passenger were both 15-year-old boys, and that the female who died in the back seat was 19.

The Elantra, which had Colorado plates, was designed to seat five. The Colorado State Patrol said the car was not stolen in that state.

Data from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office shows 256 juvenile auto theft cases have been referred to prosecutors so far in 2026, including 132 from Minneapolis police.

MPD traffic investigators and forensic scientists processed the scene, and the southbound I-35W exit to Southeast Fourth Street and Ninth Avenue Southeast were closed for several hours.

Police said they are still investigating the sequence of events that led to the crash.