COLORADO SPRINGS — Eight pedestrians have been killed in Colorado Springs this year with five of those in the past month alone, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.
News5 brought you the story of a family Sunday searching for answers in the hit-and-run death of their 20-year-old daughter. Olivia Clark was killed when she was hit by a car at Galley Road and Circle Drive.
“It’s frustrating, when we see people that don’t stick around and have some kind of accountability,” CSPD Major Crash Unit Detective Chris Frabbiele said.
Moments after Olivia’s story aired at 10 p.m. Sunday, another pedestrian was struck and killed by a car in that same neighborhood.
A man in a wheelchair rolled onto a crosswalk into oncoming traffic at Academy and Galley, a mere two blocks away from where Olivia was hit.
The driver did the right thing and stopped. But looking at the crosswalk in the car’s wake, the outcome isn’t hard to guess.
“In any types of auto-pedestrian crash, pedestrian always loses,” Frabbiele said.
At Circle and Galley, Clark’s family and friends built a makeshift memorial of candles and balloons Sunday evening. On Tuesday, four of the candles were still burning, even after multiple rainstorms.
“We’ve had four fatal traffic or auto-pedestrian crashes in just the past week and a half alone,” he said. “We look for any kind of trends, and we address those. A lot of times we see people trying to walk outside of the crosswalk.”
Police say it’s important to obey signals traffic signals, both for pedestrians and drivers.
As for Clark’s case, police still need help finding who hit her.
“Please, someone come forward,” Frabbiele said. “This investigation, this family, this community… it deserves closure with this type of case.”
He said the car involved was an early 2000s model Silver Audi Wagon, similar to the photo above. He said it likely has some obvious front end damage, and want all body shops to be aware in case someone takes it in for repairs.
If you have any information at all about what happened to Olivia that night, even if you don’t think it’s significant, police ask you to please call them at 719-444-7000.
