Chicago police are searching for the hit-and-run driver who struck and killed a grandmother of two who family members described as a kind and warm-hearted person.
“My mom, she’s beautiful and young, she do a lot of exercise, she loved cooking,” said her daughter, Lihua Zhang. “You can ask the neighborhood, almost everybody knows her.”
Relatives of Jinkun Xu told NBC Chicago that the 68-year-old was walking back from Pete’s Market at around 5 p.m. on Thursday evening when tragedy unfolded. The grandmother was just blocks away from home when she was hit by a pickup truck near West 43rd Street and South Pulaski Road.
Her friend witnessed it all.
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“She saw everything, my mom just died in front of her,” Zhang said. “She saw the white pickup truck, but it was sudden and then she could not remember the license plate or anything.”
Chicago police said the driver of the pickup truck blew a red light, struck Xu in the crosswalk and then kept going northbound on Pulaski.
“Every day we see people running red lights, every day,” Zhang said. “When I think about my mom, I just want to leave. I cannot cross the street, I cannot walk into the supermarket anymore.”
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Investigators released surveillance photos of the truck in a community alert late Thursday night in hope of identifying the driver. The vehicle is possibly a Ford F-150 or Ram 1500, according to police.
“I hope and I pray that people who see that can offer important information to the police or to us to try to find that guy, the driver, as soon as possible,” Zhang stated.
Xu’s family said she immigrated to Chicago from China and had just applied for citizenship.
They’re pleading for the driver to do the right thing and are asking witnesses to come forward.
“I hop the neighbors here could help or any vehicle passing by, they could offer any useful information,” she said.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or knows who the driver may be is asked to call the Major Accidents Investigations Unit at 312-745-4521.
