Crime & Safety

Teens In Fatal Newark Crash Were Driving Stolen Car: Prosecutor

A pair of teens who died in a Newark car crash were driving in a vehicle reported stolen out of Elizabeth, authorities said.

NEWARK, NJ — A pair of teens who died in a Newark car crash Friday morning were driving in a vehicle reported stolen out of Elizabeth, authorities said.

The fatal collision took place around 5:20 a.m. at the intersection of Bergen Street and Madison Avenue. Newark police officers arriving on the scene found a 2011 Acura MDX, which had crashed into the side of a nearby home on the 600-block of Bergen Street, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office stated.

Police found two unresponsive males in the vehicle. They were later identified as Quadre Robinson, 17, and Quayim Battle, 19, prosecutors said.

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Robinson and Battle were pronounced dead at the scene at 5:50 a.m. The cause of death for both will be determined by autopsies by the Northern Regional Medical Examiner’s office in Newark, prosecutors said.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, which is being conducted by the Prosecutor’s Crime Scene Investigations Bureau and the Newark Police Department. Anyone with information can call the Prosecutor’s Tips Line at (877) 847-7432.

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The Newark Fire Department and University Hospital’s Emergency Services Division also responded to and assisted at the scene, prosecutors said.

On Friday morning, Mayor Ras Baraka told reporters that the vehicle was traveling at a “very, very high speed” when the driver lost control. At that point, it clipped a traffic light, careened into the nearby house and overturned, he said.

The two teens in the car died instantly, Baraka said.

Officials deemed the house structurally unsafe, and three families were displaced, Pix11 News reported.

Nobody in the home was injured, CBS New York reported.

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Photo: CBS New York / YouTube

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