Kimberly Cruz / Photo from Chicago Police
BY MICHAEL LANSU
Homicide Watch Chicago Editor
A Humboldt Park woman has been charged with reckless homicide for allegedly having drugs in her system when she made an illegal U-turn and crashed into a motorized scooter -- injuring the driver of the scooter and killing her unborn child.
The 28-year-old pregnant woman was driving a motorized scooter east on North Avenue when she crashed into a minivan attempting to make a turn near Grand Avenue about 5:30 p.m. Sept. 9, prosecutors said.
The 2002 Chrysler Voyager minivan was parked on the south side of the 4300 block of West North Ave when driver Kimberly Cruz performed a U-turn into the path of the scooter, police said.
The woman was thrown from the scooter and taken to a local hospital, prosecutors said. Doctors determined the unborn child no longer had a heartbeat.
The woman was treated for a facial fracture, lacerated liver, concussion, bleeding on the brain and a broken wrist bone, prosecutors said.
After the crash, Cruz continued driving and eventually made a U-turn then stopped on the north side of the street, prosecutors said.
Cruz submitted to a DUI kit that determined she had THC in her system, prosecutors said.
THC, a psychoactive found in the cannabis plant, is illegal under the cannabis control act.
Cruz, 31, of the 4300 block of West North Avenue, was charged with one count each of felony reckless homicide of an unborn child and aggravated DUI causing bodily harm, police said. She was also given a traffic citation for an improper U-turn.
Cruz, whose public defender described her as a single mother of three, was ordered held on $10,000 bond Wednesday.