A 39-year-old man riding a stand-up electric scooter was killed early on Thursday, November 5, when a marked Chicago police squad car struck him in the 3200 block of South Princeton Avenue, near 32nd Street, in the Bridgeport neighbourhood on the city's South Side, the Chicago Police Department said. The crash happened at about 12:30 a.m., police said.
Source: Chicago Police Department, via FOX 32 Chicago, Nov 5, 2026
Police said the squad car was travelling northbound on Princeton Avenue when it struck the scooter, which the man was operating near 32nd Street. The rider suffered injuries to his body, was treated by paramedics at the scene and was transported to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police had not released his name by Thursday — identification in Chicago fatal crashes is formally confirmed by the Cook County Medical Examiner's office — and they have not said what either vehicle was doing in the moments before the impact.
Both officers who were in the squad car were also transported to a local hospital for treatment, according to local reporting of the department's statement. The department had not released their conditions, whether the squad car was responding to a call, or whether its emergency lights or siren were in use — three of the facts that will matter most when the investigation reports.
What police have — and have not — said
The crash is being investigated by the Chicago Police Department's Major Accidents Investigation Unit, the unit that handles the city's serious and fatal traffic crashes. In its initial statement the department provided the time, the block, the direction of travel and the outcome, and nothing about fault or cause: it has not said whether the scooter was travelling in the roadway, crossing, or turning; whether speed was a factor for either vehicle; or whether any citations are expected. Readers should treat every one of those points as open until the unit reports.
Source: ABC7 Chicago and WGN-TV reporting, Nov 5, 2026
Confirmed by the Chicago Police Department: a marked squad car travelling northbound struck a stand-up electric scooter at about 12:30 a.m. in the 3200 block of South Princeton Avenue; the 39-year-old rider died at Stroger Hospital; both officers were taken to hospital; the Major Accidents Investigation Unit is investigating. Not released: the rider's name, the officers' conditions, whether the squad car was on a call, and any finding on fault or cause.
The same neighbourhood lost a city bike planner in June
Bridgeport has already had this argument once this year. On June 5, Riley O'Neil, 35, a planner on the Chicago Department of Transportation's Complete Streets team, was riding in the painted bike lane in the 3200 block of South Halsted Street — the parallel commercial street a few blocks west of Princeton Avenue — when a driver opened a car door into his path; he clipped the door, was thrown into the street and was run over by a passing semi-truck, dying at Stroger Hospital. Police cited the driver for, among other things, the unsafe opening of a door, and cycling advocates used the death to demand protected lanes rather than paint. That case involved a bicycle and a parked car, not a scooter and a police vehicle — but it is why a second vulnerable-road-user death in the same few blocks, five months later, will draw scrutiny well beyond one crash report.
Part of a deadly year for Chicago scooter riders
Chicago's local reporting has been counting e-scooter deaths all year. Streetsblog Chicago's running record of the city's vulnerable-road-user fatalities includes a 15-year-old girl fatally struck on an e-scooter by a hit-and-run driver in South Shore on March 21 and a 17-year-old e-scooter rider struck and killed near 3340 South King Drive in Douglas on April 24; in August, ABC7 reported the death of a 16-year-old who lost control of a Lime e-scooter and crashed into a semi-truck on North Western Avenue as the third Chicago teenager killed while riding an electric scooter this year. Thursday's victim was an adult, and his crash involves a police vehicle rather than a private driver — but he joins the same citywide pattern that transportation officials and advocates have been arguing about: small electric vehicles sharing fast, dark arterial streets with cars and trucks, with almost no physical protection for the rider.
What happens next
The next official steps are the Major Accidents Investigation Unit's findings on how the crash happened, the Cook County Medical Examiner's formal identification of the rider, and the department's answers on the officers' conditions and whether the squad car was responding to a call. Whether any video of the crash exists — from the squad car, nearby buildings or doorbell cameras on the residential block — has not been stated, and its release or non-release will shape how much of the unit's account the public can check. No citation or disciplinary step had been announced by Thursday night.
For Chicago's Punjabi and South Asian families
Chicago's Punjabi community is concentrated further northwest, around Devon Avenue, rather than in Bridgeport — but the practical issue in this crash reaches every neighbourhood in the city, including the delivery, rideshare and late-shift workers who cross the South Side after midnight: the city's own statements describe a rider on a small electric scooter, in the roadway at 12:30 a.m., struck by a much larger vehicle with professional drivers inside. Until investigators publish how the two vehicles came together, the only confirmed lesson is the one the year's earlier deaths already taught — after dark, a scooter rider's safety depends almost entirely on being seen, and on the speed and attention of the traffic around them.