Originally published August 5, 2011 at 8:05 AM | Page modified August 6, 2011 at 5:26 PM
Bicyclist hurt in Renton crash dies; another hit-run reported
A bicyclist struck by an SUV in Renton on Thursday has died. Also, a driver hit a bicyclist in South Seattle on Friday, then fled. It was the second hit-and-run involving bicyclists in Seattle in the past two weeks.
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The bicyclist who was struck by an SUV on Thursday near Renton Memorial Stadium has died.
George Demendoza, 69, of Federal Way, died about 12:30 a.m. Friday from injuries suffered in the crash, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.
Demendoza was riding across several lanes of traffic on Logan Avenue North when he was struck. He had a bicycle helmet strapped to his bike but was not wearing it, Renton police said.
It was not a hit-and-run case, and no arrests were made.
Meanwhile, a bicyclist was injured in a hit-and-run accident in South Seattle around 2 a.m. Friday, marking the second hit-and-run accident involving bicyclists in the Seattle area in a week.
In just over two weeks, bicyclists have been struck by vehicles in four accidents, three of them fatal.
In the Friday morning hit-and-run incident, the bicyclist, a 25-year-old man, was riding south in the 5200 block of East Marginal Way when he was hit by a truck.
The driver who hit the bicyclist drove away, but a witness followed the truck. The driver then stopped at a drive-through restaurant and the witness wrote down the truck's license-plate number, police said in a news release.
Police tracked the truck to the address of the registered owner but have not been able to locate the driver. Police don't know if the driver was a man or a woman, said Detective Mark Jamieson, a Seattle police spokesman. Police have impounded the truck.
The victim was treated at the scene and transported to Harborview Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
The last hit-and-run accident, just over a week ago, killed a bicyclist on his way to work in the South Lake Union area. Michael Wang, a 44-year-old staff photographer for PATH, an international health-care nonprofit organization, was killed while riding on Dexter Avenue.
Seattle police are still searching for the driver involved in that incident. Police are looking for a mid-1990s to 2000, beige to brown American-made SUV, possibly with tinted windows and a silver luggage rack.
On July 22 in Kirkland, a 49-year-old man from Connecticut was killed while riding his bicycle on Northeast Juanita Drive.
Background information from previous Seattle Times stories is included.







A tip of the hat to the witness that got the license plate of the vehicle involved.
... (August 5, 2011, by LFPzen)
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