By Michael Ferraresi | The Arizona Republic
Abel Abebe
PHOENIX — Dozens of friends gathered Monday at the Laveen home of an Arizona State University student killed in a traffic collision caused by a suspected red-light runner.
Abel Abebe, 27, an immigrant from Ethiopia, died from injuries he suffered when a 2008 Hyundai coupe broadsided his Honda Civic on Baseline Road as he drove to work in Chandler. Investigators said the Hyundai’s driver ran a red light on southbound 19th Avenue as a police helicopter followed overhead.
“He wasn’t sick or anything,” said Fitsum Sima, 25, a friend and fellow Ethiopian immigrant who attended St. Mary’s Orthodox Tewahedo Church in south Phoenix with Abebe.
“It just happened on his way to work,” Sima said. “It wasn’t his fault.”
Phoenix police patrol officers spotted the Hyundai about 12:30 a.m. Monday after watching a female driver switch seats with a male passenger at an intersection near a store where police said the man stole beer moments earlier. After taking the wheel, the man sped away from an attempted traffic stop near McDowell Road and 55th Avenue, police said.
Abebe, an ASU pharmacy student, worked a graveyard shift as caregiver with mentally-challenged adults before he would head to ASU’s main campus in Tempe for class. He tutored students in math and physics.
Dawit Tessema, 23, said he spent nearly every day of the past four years at Abebe’s side between work, church and pickup soccer games.
“One day he’s here talking to me, the next day he’s gone,” Tessema said. “He was a guy you could count on. The more I think about it, the more I wonder, ‘Why him?’ ”
Phoenix Officer James Holmes, a department spokesman, said the 47-year-old driver of the Hyundai could face charges of felony flight from police and possibly vehicular homicide or manslaughter. The female passenger, 30, is not considered a suspect at this time, he said.