Mother of boy on bicycle says driver was speeding recklessly before hitting him on Chicago's North Side
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Police late Thursday were searching for a hit-and-run driver who sent five people to the hospital the night before—including a 13-year-old boy on a bicycle—in Rogers Park.
The boy was back home Thursday afternoon, with just a few scrapes. But he was scared to walk around his own neighborhood after the incident.
His mother said the car that hit him was speeding up an alley alongside Marshfield Avenue in the North of Howard section of Rogers Park when it crashed into him—and another car with a family inside.
The boy's mother said the speeding car was going "very fast."
"It was so fast that you didn't even see the car coming," she said. "You just heard it."
The boy's mother agreed to speak with CBS 2, but asked not to have her or her son's faces shown. She said she and her son were riding bikes Wednesday night around 6:30 p.m. on Jonquil Terrace near Marshfield Avenue when she watched a light blue Volkswagen slam into her son and another car.
The other car, a blue Nissan, was struck car so forcefully that it flipped on its side and ended up in the alley.
"Next second, it was boom—a boom, and you saw debris and stuff flying—and I didn't see him no more," the mother said. "So when he's on the ground."
Witnesses on the scene said police were chasing the stolen Volkswagen.
Scanner traffic also indicates that police had eyes on the car.
But the Chicago Police Department would not confirm that police were trying to make a traffic stop—saying only that this incident is still under investigation.
The driver ran away from the scene on foot.
"I was so focused on him, I didn't pay attention to anybody running away," the mother said.
A family of four traveling in the blue Nissan that went on its side also suffered injuries. The family was composed of two adults in their 40s and two children ages 10 and 7.
They have also all since been released from the hospital.
The 13-year-old's mother said X-rays were taken of her son at the hospital, but miraculously, her son only had a few scrapes. She hopes the person responsible for the crash is brought to justice.
"Especially with kids being involved, adults being involved, somebody could have lost their life," said the boy's mother.
As of late Thursday, Chicago Police were not commenting on the circumstances leading up to the crash, or its officers' involvement.