I was talking to a friend of mine, telling her about my friend’s situation where a truck driver (who was terminated after this incident) from Barr & Miles had first tried to bully him off the right lane that he was riding a bicycle in, and then slamming on his brakes, causing my friend to hit the truck’s rear tire and then causing his bike to flip and him to fall, rolling on the street.
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I was telling her that there were so many disturbing things about what happened to him. For one, that this truck driver, on company time and using a company vehicle, would take what clearly appears to be actions to intentionally harm a cyclist, and then once injured, the trucker takes off and leaves him there. How many other bike riders has this truck driver hit and left injured? It may be zero, or it may be many. The fact is that this a cyclist was injured by the actions of a truck driver but this time that cyclist was a Chicago Police Officer, off duty and in civilian clothes. Why does this make a difference? It makes a difference because normal citizens who would have been injured would have probably stayed in shock, but the Police are more adept at handling situations differently, and he hauled off on his bike and followed him back to his workplace.
It is also disturbing because while he was talking to the truck driver’s manager, his bike was vandalized to the point where he could no longer use it.
And it was especially disturbing that upon getting to the police department, his word was doubted and his account “questioned.” My friend Jodi commented, “If that’s how they treat another Police Officer, What chance do we have?” What chance, indeed?
