November 2, 2015
Ammarill News: Veteran Bicyclist Killed In Accident
by Aaron Davis aaron.davis@amarillo.com
A cross-country bicyclist died Friday when he was struck by a vehicle Thursday evening along west of Groom, Texas Department of Public Safety troopers said.
About 6:30 p.m., Stephen Michael Clift, 48, of San Diego, was riding his bicycle eastbound in the outside lane of Interstate 40 when a 2013 Kia driven by Cindi Trevino, 42, of Groom, struck Clift.
Clift landed a barrow ditch and was transported to Northwest Texas Hospital.
DPS Cpl. John Gonzales said Trevino told troopers that he “apparently had looked away and did not see the bicyclist and then struck the bicyclist.”
Clift was pronounced dead on Friday afternoon.
Clift was a member of Occupy Veterans San Francisco and was on a cross-country bike trip called the March Across America for Homeless Veterans.
On the organization’s website, occupyveteranssanfrancisco.weebly.com, Clift wrote on Oct. 23 that he had arrived in Tucumcari, N.M. and said the “intense hail storm on the open plains is no joke.”
In a Facebook post, James D. Cartmill, fellow veteran on the March Across America, wrote that Clift had died and that his daughter, Jordan, said her “heart was broken.”
Clift, known as “Pirate Mike” around San Francisco, arrived in San Francisco in 2011 and became an active member in the Occupy San Francisco movement.
In an article at www.peoplestribune.org, Clift said he was starting an “Odyssey for Peace” to bring attention to how “American citizens have shamefully and quietly passed by thousands of homeless and needy veterans living on the streets of our small towns, the steam grates of our teeming cities, and in the canyons and wilds of suburbia from Washington, D.C. to the shores of California.”
An investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Posted: November 2, 2015 – 6:03pm | Updated: November 2, 2015 – 10:27pm, By Aaron Davis aaron.davis@amarillo.com
Veterans Speakers Alliance: Veterans For Peace 