Bay View pedestrian struck during street race, drivers left her in the road

MILWAUKEE – A Bay View woman is fighting for her life after she was caught in the middle of a drag race while crossing the street Saturday night.

Cara Corder, 33, was left in the road on S. Kinnickinnic Ave. near East Ruske Ave. as the two drivers drove away.

Corder’s friend and boss Chris Schulist told TMJ4’s Tahleel Mohieldin that he was there when it happened, looking out the window of his bar, the Wiggle Room.

He said at the time that it was difficult to process what his eyes saw.

“I saw people panicking and I came outside,” he recalls. “I just remember looking at everyone and thinking about what is – who is that?”

So he started looking at the famous people around him, his employees and bar regulars. Then he realized that one face was missing from the group.

“It seems like Cara isn’t here. Is that Cara?’ he asked. “The people who hit her just didn’t stop, didn’t even blink. They just kept going.”

Schulist was shocked.

“We ran into the street,” he said, holding back tears. “We had to – people were holding up traffic so she wouldn’t get hit again.”

The terrifying situation causes Schulist and his neighbors to raise the alarm about reckless driving.

Brian Redd lives a few doors down from the Wiggle Room.

“At a certain time of night it’s like anarchy, anything goes,” Redd said. “There are no police present and I don’t know why.”

Redd said he doesn’t park his own car on the street because he’s seen enough to know it would be a risk.

“I’ve seen cars completely destroyed and then the drivers reverse and drive away,” he explained. “Usually there is no follow-up, they just get away with it.”

He said stories like this are common on Kinnickinnic and have been going on for years without a resolution. That’s why he wants a more active police presence in the area.

“I’d like to see someone parked on this corner at night,” he said. “They see a cop sitting here and they know, ‘Hey, we better not go down that road so quickly.’ That would be fantastic.”

Schulist wants to go a step further than increasing police presence, starting with a speed bump.

“If there’s one place where it would make sense to have a speed bump or something like that, it would be this barrier,” he insisted. ‘You need something here, when they’re going 70 miles an hour, to mess up their cars. That’s the only way to stop them.”

He hopes to save others from a fate that Corder is still fighting for. In the meantime, Schulist said he is clinging to any bit of good news about Corder’s condition he can find.

‘She responds. She moves her arm,” Corder said. “I’m just glad she’s not dead, because I could have been standing on the street with her dead body that day.”

Milwaukee police said they are investigating the collision. They confirmed that two cars were racing and one of them hit a pedestrian crossing the street.

They said both unknown cars fled the scene. MPD is investigating the incident.

A gofundme was set up by Corder’s friends to help the 33-year-old with hospital bills, rehabilitation costs and living expenses on her difficult road to recovery.

The GoFundMe, which Corder describes as a Milwaukee treasure, has raised more than $40,000 so far.

For Schulist and other community members, Corder is more than deserving of the support because in addition to her work at the Vanguard and hosting art shows, she always shows up to support her loved ones.

“She is one of the hardest working people I know,” Schulist said.

In a Facebook post Saturday, Councilwoman Marina Dimitrijevic said her office is in communication with the Milwaukee Police Department.

Dimitrijevic said MPD’s District 6 will increase patrols in the area and that her office has asked the Department of Public Works to conduct a new analysis of the area along Kinnikinnic Ave.

“We send our deepest thoughts to Cara, her family and her friends at the Vanguard,” Dimitrijevic wrote. “We can and must do better in our city.”

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Milwaukee Police at (414) 935-7219, or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (414)224-Tips/ or P3 Tips.

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