Many of you have started recording your commutes. Given what happened here, this may be an important safeguard for cyclists to protect us in the cases like this when a crash occurs without witnesses.

In the aftermath of the crash, Kruger says, Zidek lay with the left side of her face and shoulder on the asphalt, her hips rotated toward the ground. Even though Kruger didn't yet know an officer had injured Zidek, she says she noticed the police weren't doing anything to comfort the victim.

"The police kept asking her if she knew what had happened. And she wanted to give them the information, but she was absolutely blindsided and had no idea," Kruger says. "She got really upset and started to cry, so I asked them to stop."

Kruger waited with Zidek until an ambulance took her to Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital, where she was treated for a broken pelvis and leg, road rash, and injuries to her face, according to her male relative.

As Kruger walked back toward her house, she saw an unmarked Ford Explorer SUV parked diagonally across Racine, south of Zidek's bike, with a dented hood and a shattered windshield. Kruger then realized that an officer had struck Zidek.

"I was so frustrated," Kruger says. "The police knew exactly what happened."

Zidek and her father didn't respond to e-mails sent through their attorney, Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci & Blandin. Zidek was recently released from the hospital, Romanucci says, and is currently undergoing challenging and painful physical therapy.

In a statement last week, CPD spokesman Kevin Quaid blamed Zidek for the crash, claiming that she "disregarded a stop sign" and that the officer who struck Zidek had his emergency lights activated when the crash occurred.

Officers responding to emergencies may disobey traffic rules, such as stopping for stop signs, if they activate their lights and sirens, according to CPD. Police also have the option not to turn on sirens if they need to roll up on a crime scene quietly, as long as it's safe to do so.

But Romanucci argues that this doesn't absolve the officer who struck Zidek, if it's found that he was "acting with conscious disregard" for the safety of others.

According to both Romanucci and Kruger, it appears that no third-party witnesses saw the moment of impact. There are no traffic cameras at Wellington and Racine, and the attorney says there doesn't seem to be security camera footage of the collision. But late-model police vehicles, like the one involved in the crash, have dash cams that automatically start recording when emergency lights or sirens are activated, CPD confirmed.

"So if the lights were on, then the dash cam was on, and we should find out if they're telling us the truth," Romanucci says. "We know that the Chicago police will do whatever it takes to hide their responsibility and misdeeds and misconduct, and transparency is an issue with revealing police misconduct."

The U.S. Department of Justice report on CPD released last month suggests that Romanucci's claims aren't just wild accusations. The DOJ's investigation found, among other things, that a "code of silence" exists among officers. "One way to cover up police misconduct is when officers affirmatively lie about it or intentionally omit material facts," the report states.

Full Article on Chicago Reader:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/zidek-cpd-police-cyclist-crash...