Thursday, July 12, 2012

THE SUV DID IT!

St. Paul teen killed by unlicensed driver remembered at her funeral

By Mara H. Gottfried mgottfried@pioneerpress.com Posted: 07/11/2012 12:01:00 AM CDT Updated: 07/12/2012 10:12:34 AM CDT

She waited a day and a half to go to the spot where her daughter was killed, until it was quiet there -- the 16-year-old's high school classmates and the media were gone. She kneeled, touching the ground with both hands, touching the place where her girl was taken from her.

Clarisse Grime, run over by an out-of-control sport utility vehicle, was Martha Tamene Woldegiorgis' only child. She says she gave up everything for Grime, moving her from her homeland in Ethiopia to two continents, in search of a better life for her daughter.

As hard as it was to go to the East Side, where Grime died Thursday, July 5, about 50 feet from the street, near the sign for St. Paul's Harding High School, Woldegiorgis said she had to.

"It the last place where she was," she said. On Wednesday, July 11, Woldegiorgis and her family laid Grime to rest. The packed Minneapolis church where the funeral was held was filled with the sound of sobbing, perhaps greatest when Harding teacher Yeugeniya Malikin spoke.

Malikin recalled Grime as being quick to say to her, "I'm sorry, Ms." She continued, "I want to say today, 'I'm sorry, Clarisse.' ... I'm trying to make sense of it, but I can't." Then the teacher turned to the teen's casket and said, "I'm so sorry."

After the funeral, Malikin said she was apologizing to Grime for not being able to protect her.

"I thought I loved her so much that I could protect her, but it didn't work out that way," said the English Language Learner teacher who knew Grime for two years. The driver charged in the case remains jailed and his attorney repeated his apologies Wednesday.

Police said the accident happened about 1 p.m. July 5 when Carlos Viveros-Colorado, 50, was driving east on Third Street and trying to turn left onto Hazelwood Street. He hit a fire hydrant, careened across Hazelwood Street, struck a "no parking" sign and barreled about 50 feet down an embankment.

Grime and her boyfriend, 17-year-old Eduardo Vazquez-Torres, were sitting under a tree when Viveros-Colorado's SUV struck them. Grime died at the scene; Vazquez-Torres suffered minor injuries.

Grime's stepfather and mother both work at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport -- Yoseph Yimam, who is studying to be a nurse, is a sales associate at an airport gift shop, and Woldegiorgis works for the sanitation department.

When police came to Woldegiorgis at work last Thursday, she said she immediately sensed why they were there and asked them, "What is wrong with my daughter?"

Yimam said he can't believe Grime was so far off the road, in a place where she should have been safe, when she was killed.

Alberto Miera, Viveros-Colorado's attorney, has said his client was not turning left but heading straight on Third Street. He was going home from his job at a bakery. His arm and leg went numb, he couldn't move his leg to step on the brake and he panicked, hitting the gas, Miera said. Viveros-Colorado is undocumented and in the United States illegally, Miera said, and state records show he has never had a Minnesota driver's license.

Grime's family is less concerned about his status as an illegal immigrant, saying that's something officials will deal with. But they are angry that he was driving.

"This is America and if you don't have a driving license, you have another opportunity to catch a bus," Grime's aunt, Meseret Semeani, said.

Grime's family doesn't know whether to believe the story Viveros-Colorado told police about numbness in his leg, but if true, that was more reason he should not have been driving, they said.

"That's why we need justice," Yimam said. "We don't need other people to be hurt again. This is a lesson, not just for him. This is a lesson for anybody who hurts kids, who hurts people who have a dream."

Miera said Wednesday: "On the sad day of her funeral is probably not the time to talk about whatever pain, sorrow and angst he (Viveros-Colorado) is obviously going through because he well recognizes it can't compare to the suffering and sorrow that Clarisse's family is enduring. It's all he can do at this stage is offer his humble prayers and repeat his sorrow, and trust in God's grace first for her

family and ultimately to hope for understanding and reconciliation." THE JOURNEY TO ST. PAUL Woldegiorgis and other family members told the story of Grime's life in an interview Tuesday.

Grime was born in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, on Nov. 11, 1995. Her father died when she was young, her family said. She and her mother were surrounded by family in Ethiopia, and followed Woldegiorgis' mother to Italy when Grime was 4 years old. The girl picked up Italian quickly and they lived in Sicily until she was 10.

From ages 10 to 14, Grime lived in Milan with her mother. It had been hard for Woldegiorgis to find a job and she moved to Milan to do so, where she did housecleaning and cooking.

"She tried to change her little girl's life, to get more money to raise her," said Woldgiorgis' sister, Semeani. But it was difficult for Woldegiorgis to be without her family, who helped the single mother care for Grime.

Semeani was already living in Minnesota and knew Yimam. Yimam and Woldgiorgis had been friends in Ethiopia, and Semeani thought they would be a good match. Yimam went to Italy in 2008, and he and Woldgiorgis were married.

Yimam, who has lived in Minnesota since 2001 and said he is a U.S. citizen, returned to St. Paul, but Woldegiorgis and Grime couldn't legally come here until 2010, Yimam said. They are legal permanent residents and Grime was becoming a citizen, a process her mother will continue, her family said.

Grime was 14 when they moved to St. Paul, and learning English and a new culture was hard for her at first, said her stepfather and aunt. Semeani remembered bringing Grime to school for her first meeting and having to translate for her. But the teen, whom Semeani described as always being brilliant, worked hard and excelled. She earned A's and B's in her freshman and sophomore years at Harding, and would have been a junior in the fall.

At school, Grime helped other transplants from Ethiopia, translating in their native Amharic, Semeani said.

Grime's first friends were students who could speak Spanish, Yimam said. Because the Italian and Spanish languages are similar, Grime could pick up Spanish, he said. That was how she met Vazquez-Torres, a classmate who became her first boyfriend, Woldegiorgis said.

They'd been dating for about two years. The couple, who always rode the city bus together, were waiting for the bus when the accident happened.

At first, Grime's family was wary of her being in a relationship.

"In our culture, we don't want our kids to have boyfriends because we want them to focus on education," Yimam said. But they found Vazquez-Torres to be a nice young man and accepted him, Yimam said. Grime told her family she wanted to marry him.

Grime was attending summer school to get extra help with tests required for graduation. She planned to go to college. Sometimes she said she wanted to be a veterinarian, other times a medical doctor, or to do some kind of work with elderly people. "She was a kid, she changed her mind often," Yimam said.

Friends have described Grime's big, bright smile. She always had that smile, which came "from the bottom of her heart," Yimam said.

At Grime's funeral at Debreselam Medhanealem Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a friend read a statement that students had written.

"Clary was a beautiful girl inside and out," she began and ended by saying, "We lost a sister but now we got an angel watching over us."

Yimam extended his thanks to people who contributed to a fund set up to cover funeral expenses, saying they should have enough money.

On Saturday, when Woldegiorgis went to see the place where Grime was killed, Yimam put his arms around her. He knows his wife is devastated and he is worried about what will happen next.

"When I go to work and she goes back herself and everybody who has been visiting us goes about their business, she will be by herself and how is she going to cope?" he asked.

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her at twitter.com/MaraGottfried or twitter.com/ppUsualSuspects.

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