Family mourns teen girl struck, killed by vehicle while waiting with mom at South Side CTA bus stop

Liz Nagy Image
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Mother mourns loss of daughter after being killed by car
A family is mourning the loss of a 14-year-old girl who was killed Friday night waiting near a bus stop.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- As little remains of the physical wreckage, the morbid reality is a family is now living with something worse after 14-year-old Angela Short was killed Friday night in a crash.

"Right now, it's very hard," said Linette Cheers, the victim's aunt. "Every time she replays the situation she cries. She never went unconscious, so she's able to tell you what happened from beginning to end."

Kennetta Bradford's sisters said she was standing at the CTA bus stop at 79th and Racine with her daughter. They were going to Angela's father's house.

"They were going to her dad's house to pick up her money for [Angela's] school clothes and supplies," Cheers said.

But as the two waited, police said a driver in a gold Mercedes sped through a red light, slamming into a Jeep that crashed into the mother and daughter.

"She said one minute they were just standing there and then the next minute it happened so fast they didn't even have time to react," said Kenya Parker, an aunt of one of the victims.

Kennetta thought her daughter was safe, but Short wasn't safe. As her mom yelled for her daughter over and over again.

"A young man pulled the truck off my niece," Cheers said. "She was up under the vehicle and they kept yelling, 'oh my god it's a baby, it's a baby.'"

Just two weeks out from starting her first year of high school at Chicago Vocational School, the soft-spoken 14-year-old died right there waiting to get to her dad's house.

Short was her father's only daughter, and her mother's youngest.

Bradford is still here at the hospital with broken bones and a punctured lung from the impact.

Her sisters said she's struggling more with the grief of her daughter.

Police said no one has been charged or cited for causing the deadly impact.