Pedestrian killed in crash at 3rd and Liberty; Bloomington police investigating

According to a Wednesday (Aug. 6) news release, Bloomington police are investigating a Tuesday afternoon crash that killed a pedestrian—a 76-year-old Bloomington woman, identified in the release as Dorothy Kent.

The crash took place around 4 p.m. at the intersection of Liberty Drive, a north-south street, and 3rd Street, which runs east-west, on the west side of Bloomington.

Based on the description in the news release, a 2015 Jeep Cherokee driven by a 77-year-old woman was at the intersection of Liberty Drive and 3rd Street and was headed north, looking to turn west (left) onto 3rd Street. The driver is not named in the news release.

There are two northbound lanes that lead into 3rd Street from the south, one of them a left-turn-only lane. The intersection has traffic signals that include turn arrows.

The news release says that according to witnesses, the crash victim was walking north across 3rd Street on the west side of the intersection. The news release says the driver “stated that the traffic light had turned yellow and when she did not see any oncoming traffic, she began turning west onto Third Street and felt her vehicle strike something.”

According to the news release, the driver told police she never saw the pedestrian and did not know where the pedestrian had been before she hit the pedestrian. The news release states, “The driver fully cooperated with investigators and did not display any signs of impairment.”

According to the news release, Bloomington firefighters were on the scene when police officers arrived, and were working to get the victim out from under the Jeep that struck her. The victim was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead, according to the release.

According to the news release, police continue to investigate the crash, by checking with nearby businesses for video footage of the crash.

Based on numbers from the city of Bloomington’s crash dashboard, over the last six years, from 2019 to 2024, there have been around 77 crashes at the intersection, none of them fatal. Of the 77 crashes, 20 of them injured at least one person and four of them caused someone a serious injury.