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Ghost bike for Denver gal

Ghost bike for Denver gal

Brooklyn has a new ghost bike.

Mourners installed the white-painted memorial — one of a growing number of tributes to killed cyclists — at the corner of Atlantic and Washington avenues on Saturday to mark the spot where Jasmine Herron was crushed by a city bus on Sept. 11.

The 23-year-old Ditmas Park resident was remembered as an aspiring artist who often rode her bike from her apartment to Think Coffee in Manhattan where she worked as a barista.

Herron was rolling down Atlantic Avenue when a driver opened her car door at just the wrong moment, knocking Herron into the path of a B45 bus.

Herron died at the scene. Crystal Francis, the driver, attempted to leave the scene, claiming she had nothing to do with the accident. But police officers dragged her back, and she was charged with driving on a suspended license, police said. No charges were filed against the bus driver.

Friends said Herron, a recent graduate of the Alberta College of Art & Design, was planning to return to her native Denver this week. She did return, though for her funeral on Saturday, hours before the Brooklyn vigil, said organizer James Caldwell, who is also president of the 77th Precinct Community Council.

Attendees videotaped the vigil so Herron’s mother Wendy “could see the outpouring of support for her daughter,” Caldwell explained.

Herron’s ghost bike was the 28th to be placed in Brooklyn since the practice began only a few years ago.

Dozens of bicyclists turned out to remember Colorodo native Jasmine Herron following her untimely death at the corner of Atlantic and Washington avenues.
Photo by Stefano Giovannini