Judging from the memorial to fallen cyclist Louis Ray Smith at the East Garfield Park crash site, the 56-year-old was beloved. On Homan Avenue about 200 feet south of the roaring Lake Street elevated train, relatives and friends planted red-white-and-blue artificial flowers in the grass and burned memorial candles on the curb. A colorful lei and a stuffed beagle with “Snoop” and “Smooth,” the nicknames of friends, written in marker on its fur, are tied to a tree. On paper taped to a lamppost, mourners left messages like “Rest up uncle—love U 2 pieces,” “Nothing compares to yoo—R.I.P. Ray,” and “I’m gonna miss U dude, but never will U be 4 gotten.”
“He was a good son,” said Smith- Washington, 73, a retired factory worker, reached by phone at her home in west-suburban Maywood. “He liked people, and he loved his kids—he was very fond of children. All of his cousins and stuff, they were just crazy about him because he would keep you laughing.” She added that his favorite activity was riding motorcycles, which he’d use to visit family in the suburbs.
Not long after Smith left on the errand, Spivey drove away from their home with a female friend and they happened upon the crash scene. “He was lying in the middle of the street,” he recalled. “I said, ‘That’s my uncle!’ [The driver] had knocked some teeth out, and you really couldn’t recognize his face.” He said the motorist, a young woman with two small boys in her car, was crying and pounding on the side of her vehicle. Smith was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:12 PM.
We saw this happen on June 2016, when a tour bus driver struck and killed bike courier Blaine Klingenberg, 29, at Oak and Michigan. The police report stated that “The victim disregarded the light at Oak and turned into the bus, causing the collision,” and most local news outlets ran with that story. However, two witnesses later told me they’re convinced the bus driver was at least partly responsible for Klingenberg’s death because she entered the intersection after her light turned red.
John Greenfield edits the transportation news website Streetsblog Chicago.
