The NYPD is looking for the driver who is behind a deadly hit-and-run that claimed a man’s life on Sunday evening.
Authorities say that at 4:28 p.m. on Nov. 1, officers responded to a 911 call regarding a bicyclist struck by a vehicle at the intersection of East 97th Street and 2nd Avenue. Upon their arrival, cops found 42-year-old Ernesto Guzman lying on the roadway with trauma to his body.
A preliminary investigation found that Guzman was riding his e-bike southbound on 2nd Avenue when an unknown man driving a black Chevy Tahoe, who was driving westbound on 97th Street, hit Guzman at the intersection and fled the scene.
EMS rushed Guzman to NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan, where he was subsequently pronounced dead.
The Chevy Tahoe was later recovered unoccupied in the vicinity of 96th Street and 3rd Avenue. No arrests have been made at this time. The investigation is ongoing.
“A driver wielding a 5,500-pound Chevrolet Tahoe SUV has killed a working cyclist who was delivering food on the Upper East Side on Sunday. The victim, identified as Ernesto Guzman, is at least the 20th person to die while riding a bicycle, and at least the 206th person killed by traffic violence, to date this year in New York City,” said Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Danny Harris in a statement. “Delivery cyclists have been on the front lines of this pandemic, and food delivery remains one of the most dangerous jobs in New York precisely because of constant exposure to impatient drivers piloting multi-ton assault vehicles on streets designed to move and store cars. Guzman’s death is not an accident, but the predictable and preventable result of the mayor slashing the Vision Zero and Green Wave Plan budgets, and delaying the rollout of the Dangerous Vehicle Abatement Program and the Streets Master Plan. The New York City Department of Transportation has the tools to deliver safer streets, but as long as the mayor holds them back, all New Yorkers are stuck with a system that prioritizes the convenience of drivers over human life.”
Updated at 10:10 a.m.
