Three NYC Cyclists Killed by Hit-and-Run Drivers in Three Days, All Still at Large

Three cyclists are dead. Three drivers ran. None of them have been caught.

New York City saw three separate fatal hit-and-run crashes involving cyclists in the span of three days last week, according to the NYPD. Two victims were killed on Tuesday, August 18, and a third died Thursday night, August 20, into the early hours of August 21.

What happened

Paulina Tec Choc, 29, was stopped on her e-bike at Jamaica Avenue and Cypress Hills Street in Brooklyn early Tuesday when a driver in a 2006 Ford F-250 pickup truck hit her from behind, ran her over, and fled, according to the NYPD and reporting from Streetsblog NYC. Tec Choc, a native of Guatemala, rode that route daily to her job at a nearby Sonic Drive-In, her manager Osman Cevallos told Streetsblog. "She was on her way to work when she got hit," Cevallos said.

That same night, around 9:30 p.m., a driver ran a red light at Bruckner Boulevard and Longwood Avenue in the South Bronx and struck 51-year-old Angelo Camera, who was riding an e-bike home from work, police said. The driver, in a black BMW, then hit a second car, sending that driver to the hospital, before fleeing, according to the NYPD. Camera's wife told the New York Daily News he had called her ten minutes earlier to say he was almost home. He left behind five children.

Two nights later, on Thursday, August 20, Mamadou Diallo, 40, was struck head-on by an eastbound BMW driver as he turned onto East 54th Street from Avenue I in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn, according to the NYPD. The impact threw Diallo into a parked Honda CR-V. He was pronounced dead at Brookdale University Hospital. The driver did not stop.

Diallo's friend Abdoulaye Barry told ABC7 New York and the Daily News that Diallo, a food delivery worker, had immigrated from Guinea about three years earlier and was minutes from finishing his shift when he was killed. Barry said it was the second time Diallo had been hit by a car while delivering — the first time, the driver stayed and paid his medical bills. This time, the driver ran. "This is the second time, and he didn't make it," Barry said.

Who's chasing what

Police have not identified or located any of the three drivers as of Friday, August 21, according to the NYPD, Gothamist, and the Daily News. Investigators are canvassing for surveillance footage in the Diallo case to trace the BMW's path after the crash.

None of these are pending charges yet. There's nobody in custody to charge. Three fatal crashes, three drivers who chose to leave instead of calling 911, and zero arrests a week later.

The infrastructure argument

Advocates from Transportation Alternatives want Mayor Mamdani to come up with a plan to stop the carnage and protect all New Yorkers from preventable crashes, according to Streetsblog NYC. The group's executive director, Ben Furnas, said in a statement, "Three hard-working New Yorkers are dead, and three families are heartbroken with grief. It doesn't have to be this way. These three New Yorkers lost their lives because they rode a bike in a city that, despite years of steady progress, still does not ensure safe rides for them." Transportation Alternatives held a die-in protest in City Hall Park.

Cevallos, Tec Choc's boss, told Streetsblog, "If there was a [bike] lane, maybe it wouldn't have happened. It's a crazy street." Poor visibility, missing bike infrastructure, and dangerous intersections do contribute to crash risk, and New York City has logged more than 3,000 traffic deaths since it launched its "Vision Zero" initiative, according to Streetsblog NYC.

But infrastructure didn't make these three drivers flee. A driver who runs over a stationary cyclist and keeps driving, or blows a red light and kills a man, or fails to stop after throwing someone into a parked car, made a choice in that moment that has nothing to do with paint on the road. Bike lanes might reduce collisions. They don't explain hit-and-runs.

NYPD data cited by Gothamist shows fatalities involving bicycles and e-bikes are up in 2026 compared to last year, with e-bikes, scooters, and motorcycles driving much of the increase. That's a real trend worth scrutiny. Faster, heavier vehicles sharing lanes built for slower ones is a genuine safety question independent of any political framing.

What's unresolved

No suspect has been named in any of the three cases. No charges have been filed because no drivers have been identified. The NYPD has not said whether it believes the same driver is connected to more than one crash, and, according to Gothamist, did not immediately have a description of the driver in the Diallo case.

Until one of these drivers is found, the open question is simple. Will surveillance footage and canvassing turn up enough evidence to charge anyone, or will three families spend the fall watching an open case go cold.