Angela Hongo, the mother of 17-year-old dancer Boaz “Bo” Flemister, remembered her son as “the life of any party”
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NEED TO KNOW
- Empiire Dance Institute dancer Boaz “Bo” Flemister, 17, and dance director Lazarus “Hollywood” Gonzalez, 25, died in a rollover crash in Chicago on Feb. 19
- The single-vehicle accident happened at 1:15 a.m. local time
- Three other dance team members were injured in the crash
Loved ones are mourning the death of two Chicago dance team members after the vehicle they were in rolled over on an Illinois highway.
Empiire Dance Institute dancer Boaz “Bo” Flemister, 17, and dance director Lazarus “Hollywood” Gonzalez, 25, died in an early morning single-vehicle rollover crash along Bishop Ford Freeway in Chicago on Thursday, Feb. 19, according to local news outlets ABC7 WLS.
The victims were identified by Empiire Dance Institute co-CEOs Latisha Waters and Dwayne Moore, per ABC7 WLS and NBC 5 Chicago.
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“I believe they hit a pothole and the car flipped over,” Moore told ABC7 WLS of the crash, which also injured the driver and two more passengers at 1:15 a.m. local time at the I-94 northbound ramp near 111th Street.
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Moore continued, “They were ejected out of the back window and three ejected out the front window, that’s catastrophe.”
The three surviving victims were transported to nearby hospitals with serious injuries, with NBC 5 Chicago describing their conditions as “grave.”
Moore remembered Gonzalez and Flemister as “championship dancers."
“[Hollywood is a] championship dancer, he’s a director. He sculpted so many youth in Chicago,” Moore told the outlet. “Bo was a championship dancer. I had seen them since they were kids.”
Flemister’s mother, Angela Hongo, also told ABC7 WLS she knew something was wrong when her son stopped responding to her calls and texts.
“I’m calling and calling and calling him and he’s not answering. I’m texting him. He's not responding,” recalled the grieving mom, who remembered her 17-year-old child as “the life of any party.”
Hongo added, “He just likes to have fun, and for his life to be cut short over something like this, it’s not imaginable.”
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