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Police say there was some video surveillance of the Morse Ave "L" station the night a mother says her child's stroller was caught in the doors of a CTA train and dragged until it hit a guardrail. But police tell WGNTV that the incident was not captured on the tape.
Police are saying both the mother's story and the story told by the train operator are credible and that the case is being classified as "non-criminal". They also note that traces of paint on the stroller appear to support a mother's claim that it was caught in the doors of a CTA train and dragged across the platform until it hit a guard rail, flinging her toddler down by the tracks.
Chicago Police Lt. Denis Walsh said the traces of paint on the stroller seem to have been from the guard rail.
Police are still conducting interviews, he said, and are seeking to find out how the stroller apparently wound up inside the train after being dragged.
The CTA suspended the operator after the accident and pulled the car from service. The agency, however, has said initial tests show the rail car's doors were functioning properly, meaning they would have bounced open if anything had been caught in them.
The operator has said through her union that she did not notice a stroller caught in the train's doors.
The stroller was turned in to another CTA operator five stops later, according to the union, and appears largely intact in photographs given to the union for its internal investigation.
Robert Kelly, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents CTA train operators, said the umbrella stroller should not have survived the impact of hitting the metal barrier at the end of the platform or would have sustained heavy damage when it hit the platform at the next station.
"Something is not adding up here," Kelly said. "I'm going to go on the record that I do not believe the whole truth is being told. ... The stroller is the key to this whole thing."
Police are saying both the mother's story and the story told by the train operator are credible and that the case is being classified as "non-criminal". They also note that traces of paint on the stroller appear to support a mother's claim that it was caught in the doors of a CTA train and dragged across the platform until it hit a guard rail, flinging her toddler down by the tracks.
Chicago Police Lt. Denis Walsh said the traces of paint on the stroller seem to have been from the guard rail.
Police are still conducting interviews, he said, and are seeking to find out how the stroller apparently wound up inside the train after being dragged.
The CTA suspended the operator after the accident and pulled the car from service. The agency, however, has said initial tests show the rail car's doors were functioning properly, meaning they would have bounced open if anything had been caught in them.
The operator has said through her union that she did not notice a stroller caught in the train's doors.
The stroller was turned in to another CTA operator five stops later, according to the union, and appears largely intact in photographs given to the union for its internal investigation.
Robert Kelly, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents CTA train operators, said the umbrella stroller should not have survived the impact of hitting the metal barrier at the end of the platform or would have sustained heavy damage when it hit the platform at the next station.
"Something is not adding up here," Kelly said. "I'm going to go on the record that I do not believe the whole truth is being told. ... The stroller is the key to this whole thing."
