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player ready...For Jadzia Bobek, Sundays often meant rising well before dawn to help her mother load bread, cakes and pastries from the family’s Polish bakery into a van for delivery around the Chicago area.
But the routine turned tragic this weekend when an allegedly drunken off-duty Chicago police officer fatally struck Bobek with his car as she crossed the street in front of the bakery in the 3000 block of North Milwaukee Avenue.
A family member said Bobek, 19, wanted to become a chef and was to start culinary school in March. The Bridgeview woman enjoyed helping around Pasieka Bakery, which her mother co-owned.
“She had such plans,” said her brother, Robert Bobek, who with his mother saw the accident. “The cop took that away from her.”
The officer, Alonzo Caudillo, 33, appeared in court Monday and was expected to be released on $125,000 bond. A small group of police officers and family members gathered before the hearing to show support for Caudillo.
Caudillo, a patrol officer who has been with the department for six years, faces charges of reckless homicide, driving under the influence and striking a pedestrian in a roadway.
Prosecutors say Bobek suffered massive internal injuries after being struck about 4:50 a.m. Sunday and dragged about 20 feet under Caudillo’s Jeep. She died about four hours later in Illinois Masonic Medical Center.
After striking Bobek, investigators said, Caudillo drove more than 240 feet before running into a parking meter and a tree. The post that had supported the parking meter was flattened almost parallel with the sidewalk, and a nearby tree had a 3-foot gash in its base.
Bobek’s brother said he ran up to the Jeep after the crash and told the man not to leave. He said he learned at the hospital that the man was a police officer.
Cook County Assistant State’s Atty. Joanna Leafblad said police smelled a strong odor of alcohol around Caudillo and said he had “bloodshot, glossy eyes.” He refused to take a Breathalyzer test at the time of his arrest.
Leafblad said Caudillo, of the 3300 block of North Hamlin Avenue, had no criminal record or history of driving violations.
Caudillo’s lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., said his client is innocent.
“There is no evidence that the defendant was drinking,” Adam said. “It was an accident, and it should be treated that way.”
Workers at Pasieka Bakery placed four lit candles on the sidewalk near the crash site Monday afternoon.
“She was a very nice person and very smart,” said co-worker Jack Mroczka.
Bakery customers and other people in the Avondale neighborhood’s Polish community talked with each other about the accident.
“It’s very, very sad,” said Marzena Kruzel, who lives next door to the bakery and heard Bobek’s mother shout `Oh, my baby’ after the accident. “She was just trying to help her mom.”