Fatality Tracker: 5th pedestrian death in 14 days takes place in East Garfield Park


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Looking north on Pulaski approaching Congress.

2012 Chicago fatality stats*:

Pedestrian: 15 (6 have been hit-and-run crashes)
Pedalcyclist: 4 (1 is a hit-and-run crash)
Transit: 6

News of yet another fatal pedestrian crash this morning means that five pedestrians have died in crashes in Chicago within a last 14 days. That’s a third of all pedestrian deaths for the entire year so far, 35 weeks, within only a two-week period.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Alejandro Cruz, 33, was killed by a crash this morning at the 500 block of South Pulaski Road in the East Garfield Park neighborhhod. Cruz, an Oak Park resident, was running across Congress Parkway at 7:55 a.m. when a northbound driver on Pulaski struck the pedestrian with his Chevrolet Impala, according to Police News Affairs.

Cruz was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital and pronounced dead at 9:05 a.m. The 22-year-old driver stayed at the scene of the crash where he was ticketed for driving without having his license and proof of insurance with him, police said.

* The information is only accurate as of this post’s publishing time and includes only people who died in the Chicago city limits. View previous Fatality Tracker posts.

Published by

John Greenfield

John has lived in Chicago since 1989 and has worked a number of bicycle jobs, from messenger to mechanic to managing the Chicago Department of Transportation's bicycle parking program, arranging the installation of over 3,700 bike racks. He writes regularly for Time Out Chicago, Newcity, Momentum and Urban Velo magazines and works at Boulevard Bikes in Logan Square.

5 thoughts on “Fatality Tracker: 5th pedestrian death in 14 days takes place in East Garfield Park”

    1. This is absolutely awful.

      Every day when I was in Copenhagen I would read the newspaper, Politikken. Nowhere did I notice in that paper or in any other news media that Copenhageners were dying on the streets. I am still on vacation and the news that is reaching me here (I’m now in Munich) is driving me bonkers.

      Why are so many cars colliding with people?

      Thank you for posting these links. I am writing the Fatality Tracker post for these crashes but as of now we only report on the fatalities.

  1. Is their anyway you can post pictures, my family got a call from alexandro’s girlfriend saying that he had passed away; We just want to confirm that it wasn’t a mistake
    if anyone has any pictures pleaseeee contact me
    sense the name was either spelled wrong or we were given the wrong informacio
    melanniegonzalez@hotmail.com

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