Bike safety advocates, family to hold vigil for 16-year-old Joshua Anleu, fatally struck by driver in Portage Park

It has been almost a month since 16-year-old Joshua Anleu was fatally struck by a driver while biking near his home in Portage Park, and for his mother Karen Buendia, the pain is still just as fresh as the night of the crash.

“I just want him to get justice, I just want my son to get justice. ... That’s the only thing I ask for,” Buendia said. “She killed him, and she has to pay for this. ... Right now, she’s at home. ... I am here suffering.”

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, according to Chicago police.

Buendia does not agree with this version of events.

“He assumed she would stop, and she didn’t stop,” Buendia told the Sun-Times. “They say she stopped. No she did not stop. ... The way she killed my son, she did not stop. I’m just waiting for the law to do the right thing, and if nothing happens ... what can I do?”

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. She 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 Saturday at the request of his family. The vigil will be at 1 p.m. near the scene of the collision at Long and Waveland avenues.

“I am just doing this vigil for my son to let people know people are dying for nothing, for no reason,” Buendia said.

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 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 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 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. The driver was cited for failure to yield.

At least nine people have died after being struck by vehicles while riding a bike in Cook County 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.

Christina Whitehouse, founder of the bike safety group Bike Lane Uprising, told the Sun-Times there has been an explosion of cycling and pedestrian deaths in the city in recent years.

“If you look at that location (where Anleu was killed), it looks like every residential intersection in Chicago,” Whitehouse said. “So if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere else.”

She said the number of cyclists killed in Chicago this year could be higher than four since the deaths are not tracked on a central database.

Whitehouse said she was encouraged by the outreach she received from both the local alderperson and state representative who will both be speaking at the vigil Saturday.

The ghost bike vigil can feel almost like a funeral, Whitehouse said, and while some families are not ready for that, she commended the strength of Anleu’s family.

“They lost their teenage son,” Whitehouse said. “He just turned 16 the week prior to being killed. The fact that they are willing to do this to bring more attention, not only to what happened to their son, but what is happening in the bike community as a whole, says a lot.”