Bike safety advocates will hold a vigil Saturday for 16-year-old Joshua Anleu, who was killed last month while biking near his home in the Portage Park area.
Anleu, a sophomore at Schurz High School, was biking in the 5300 block of West Waveland Avenue about 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4 when a driver struck him after stopping at the stop sign, Chicago police said.
When officers arrived on the scene, Anleu was receiving chest compressions from a nearby resident, according to the traffic report. He was taken to Stroger Hospital where he died two days later.
The driver told officers she did not see Anleu as she was driving through the intersection.
The driver was cited for failure to exercise due care to a pedestrian in the roadway.
Bike Lane Uprising will hold a ghost bike vigil for Anleu on Saturday, at the request of his family. The vigil will take place at 1 p.m. near the scene of the collision at the corner of Long and Waveland Avenues.
[ GHOST BIKE VIGIL ] At the request of the family, please join us for a ghost bike vigil for 16 year old Josh Anleu. He was killed by a hit and run driver in Chicago’s Portage Park neighborhood.
— Bike Lane Uprising® (@bikelaneuprise) October 31, 2023
Saturday, November 4th & 1pm. pic.twitter.com/DdWPyX5nSx
Family and friends launched a GoFundMe to cover funeral costs, which has raised over $10,500.
In the weeks after Anleu’s death, two more cyclists were struck and killed in Cook County.
On Oct. 23, Donald Heggemann, a well-liked 59-year-old ceramicist who lived in Edgewater, was headed north in a bike lane in the 5100 block of North Damen Avenue when he was hit by a Volvo S60 being driven by a 30-year-old woman, according to a police report.
Witnesses flagged down police when they saw the crash and the Volvo drive away. Officers pulled over the car and the driver consented to a Breathalyzer test, which registered a 0.20 blood alcohol concentration, the police report states. That is more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
A day later, James Bowman, a Belmont Cragin resident, was struck by a vehicle near the intersection of Mannheim Road and Armitage Avenue in suburban Melrose Park, according to a village spokesman.
The driver in that case stopped immediately and attempted to administer aid, the spokesman said. They were cited for failure to yield.
At least nine people have died after being struck by vehicles while riding a bike in Cook County so far this year, according to data from the Cook County medical examiner’s office. At least four of those incidents happened within the city.
Anleu was the youngest victim, according to data from the medical examiner’s office.
After Heggemann’s death, Christina Whitehouse, founder of the bike safety group Bike Lane Uprising, told the Sun-Times that fatal bike crashes are becoming far too common in the city.
She said the number of bikers killed in Chicago this year is likely even higher than four since the parameters for tracking cyclist deaths aren’t clear-cut.
“Chicago is supposed to be one of the top biking cities, and we’re still losing people left and right,” Whitehouse said.
