Dec 3, 2008 3:47 pm US/Central
Man Gets 8 Years For Fatal Rogers Park Hit-And-Run
CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) ―
A north side man was sentenced to eight years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to the hit-and-run killing of a college student who had just rescued a woman from an attack outside a Rogers Park bar last spring.
Boubacar Bah, 25, of the 1400 block of West Farwell, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of aggravated DUI and was sentenced by Cook County Judge Clayton Chase to eight years, according to Cook County State's Attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton.
Bah turned himself in to Chicago police following a hit-and-run that killed Thomas Dalof, 26, on March 15 in the 6200 block of North Lakewood. Police said Dalof was crossing the street about 1:55 a.m. when a car ran into him and kept on going. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he died.
Police found the car abandoned in an alley in the 1300 block of West Granville, smashed into a utility pole. Bah, a native of Guinea who has been a Chicago resident for six years, was originally charged with reckless homicide and leaving the scene of an accident
Prosecutors said Dalof, a senior at Northeastern Illinois University, had been celebrating acceptance into the stagehands union and being offered a job as Chicago firefighter when he and friends confronted two men who were attacking a woman outside the Pumping Company tavern.
When the woman had gotten out of her car, two men started kicking her. Dalof came to her rescue, and Dalof's friend ran to his aid. The woman was able to jump into her car and escape.
Dalof and his friend decided not to fight the men, instead jogging toward Dalof's car, a Pontiac Trans Am that was being driven by a second friend. But they were unable to get into the car because they were approached by a group of five or six young men who had been in the bar with the woman's attackers.
The friend said he turned around and saw a red car with one headlight speeding toward them. It ran a stop sign and rammed into Dalof.
Court documents say Bah told police he smoked marijuana and drank five Hennesseys after he got off work from his delivery job at Sam's Deli on West Granville. While Dalof's friends at first believed he was part of the group that had attacked the woman, prosecutors later said he was not involved in the original altercation.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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