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Mpls. Police Seek Help Finding Driver Following Attacks On Cyclists

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Police are still looking for the public's help to find a driver they say is hurling chunks of cement at bicyclists in south Minneapolis.

Since Friday, police say they've gotten multiple reports from cyclists saying they were also targeted.

On Sunday, WCCO-TV spoke to the mother of 20-year-old Mackenzie Jensen, who was hit with a brick-sized chunk while biking on a quiet block of 41st Street near Aldrich Avenue.

Most of these incidents were reported in south Minneapolis. Even so, it's hard for police to know if all these events are related or if the suspect will strike again.

But in a city that is consistently ranked among the most popular biking cities in the country, police are hoping to put a stop to what happened to people like Jensen and Tim Mader-Brown.

Last week, he was injured while biking home from work.

"I remember waking up on the side of the road and someone helping me," he said.

Frustrated and dealing with a concussion, he could only remember a white vehicle.

"That's one of the only clues I had that I told my wife while I was in the ER," Mader-Brown said.

After he saw what happened to Jensen, Mader-Brown took another look at his helmet. He thinks the residue on it is from some type of cement, like the bricks a man was seen hurling out of the window of his white Ford Bronco on Friday.

"I was really frustrated not knowing what happened," he added.

Soren Jensen, who advocates for bikers in Minneapolis and along the Midtown Greenway, says Minneapolis already leads the way in providing safe bike paths for riders and that 30 to 40 miles of more paths with barriers from traffic are coming soon.

"What's keeping people from biking is they don't feel safe because of all the cars," he said. "But if you create a protected bike lane, more people will use it, more people will bike."

He says of a million rides along the Greenway per year, he only gets a few reports of any drivers or people hassling the bikers below, usually throwing trash from the bridges above.

"It does happen," he said. "It's very rare."

But he's never heard of anything violent like what's now been reported in other parts of south Minneapolis, where bikers and drivers share the road.

"If I put the pieces together, it makes sense that I was attacked by the same person [who attacked Jensen]," Mader-Brown said.

Again, police say it's hard to know if all of these incidents involve the same suspect, and, if so, what is motivating him.

They are reviewing surveillance footage from across the city to hopefully get a license plate from that white Bronco.

Anyone with information should call the Minneapolis Police Department at 612-692-8477.

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