WEST WARWICK - Two local teenagers are dead, following two separate vehicle collisions at the same site, within just hours of each other.
Police said in a press release it appears an 18-year-old man died in an apparent hit-and-run accident early Saturday morning, while the man was visiting a makeshift memorial to a 14-year-old who died following an accident that occurred late Friday night.
The 18-year-old, Coventry Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro confirmed Saturday afternoon, was a Coventry High School senior. Someone reached at the 18-year-old's household confirmed his identity as Andrew Coit.
The 14-year-old, Darien Plass, had been drinking and took the family's Ford van out for a drive late Friday after his mother, Tina Plass, went to sleep, the mother said Saturday.
"The message I want to get out there, is 'Please don't make the mistake of drinking and driving,'" Tina Plass said from her living room Saturday afternoon. She had been joined there by a few of her friends, and dozens of Darien's over the course of the day. Tina Plass, originally from New York, adopted Darien when he was three weeks old, and raised him in West Warwick from that time on.
Darien, a West Warwick High School freshman, collided with a pole at 782 Main Street, according to the police statement. He had life-threatening injures was pronounced dead a short while later at Kent Hospital. Police said speed appears to have been a factor, and a team is working to reconstruct the accident.
The resident of 782 Main Street, who identified himself only as Kenny, was among those in a crowd surrounding Darien's accident Friday night. He said Saturday he put a sheet over Darien, because "that's how his friends would probably prefer to remember him."
"I just remember that smell of the airbag," Kenny said.
Kenny left his home again at about 4 a.m. Saturday morning, to find Coit playing guitar in tribute to Darien. He helped Coit, the 18-year-old, hang a T-shirt that friends and loved ones could sign; the poll already included several tributes to Darien written directly on it.
It was shortly after, he said, that Coit was killed.
"I never figured something like this would happen," Kenny said, blaming what he described as poor lighting on the street for being a factor in both crashes.
"This was so unnecessary," Coventry Superintendent Kenneth DiPietro said Saturday afternoon. "Not only because it happened in the same spot twice, but because it happened since [Coit] just wanted to set up a memorial. He stayed on for just a bit, and this is what happened."
The police press statement cites a call of a "man down," Coit, at the Main Street location. Evidence at the scene suggested a hit-and-run driver, police reported. Coit was also transported to Kent Hospital, and was pronounced dead there.
The Daily Times had not yet been able to contact officers in the West Warwick Police Department detective division as of mid-day Saturday.
Police said in the statement they believe the hit-and-run driver fled north on Main Street, toward Coventry. The driver's vehicle likely sustained front-end, passenger-side damage, police said.
DiPietro anticipated grief counselors being made available to Coventry High School students when they return Monday, but exact plans for the schools' response to the 18-year-old's death had not yet been established. DiPeitro said he was waiting until he knew the Coit family's wishes to finalize plans, being made in conjunction with Coventry High School's principal.
West Warwick High School principal Wayne Talbot said that on Sunday, grief counselors and other staffers would come together to create a formalized plan for helping students through the loss.
"Darien was well-known in our building," Talbot said. "He had a number of friends who were very close to him. This will be a tragedy and a shock for a lot of staff as well as students.
Dozens of friends of both students had been to the poll at 782 Main Street throughout the day Saturday, those gathered, Tina Plass and an officer stationed at the scene all said. Tina Plass said some students were trying to arrange a candlelight vigil for Saturday evening after dark. A police officer was expected to be stationed at the scene to prevent further incidents.
IchLiebeSie Community Member 
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