Fundraiser Launched For Family Of Deliveryman Killed In Crash

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The owner of an East Harlem pizzeria has launched a fundraiser for the family of Ernesto Guzman, a delivery bicyclist who was killed Sunday after being struck by a hit-and-run driver who fled the scene.

The GoFundMe aims to raise $10,000 to help Guzman's family cover funeral costs and to return his remains to his native Mexico. It had raised more than $5,200 by Thursday afternoon.

It is being co-organized by Guzman's brother and by Gregory Barrios Jr., the owner of G&J's Pizzeria on East 104th Street, where Guzman had worked for about nine months.

"He was always one to make you laugh," Barrios said, adding that Guzman fit in with the jovial, tight-knit crew at the pizza shop.

"He would join right in with the fun," Barrios said. "He fell right in line with the whole team."

When Barrios received a call Sunday about one of his employees being hospitalized, he feared there may have been a broken leg or another significant injury. News that Guzman had been killed left the shop reeling, he said.

"We’re still kind of in shock, honestly," he said. "I’d never imagined it would be this."

Guzman, 42, was a native of Puebla, Mexico and lived in East Harlem, about five blocks from the pizzeria.

According to police, Guzman was heading south on his e-bike along Second Avenue around 4:30 p.m. Sunday when a Chevy Tahoe SUV, heading west on East 97th Street, hit him in the intersection.

Guzman, who was found lying in the street with trauma about his body, was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan, where he was pronounced dead.

The SUV was later found unoccupied about a block east, near the corner of East 96th Street and Third Avenue, with no sign of the driver, who had apparently fled. The car had license plates from the Taxi and Limousine Commission, police said.

Police had not made any arrests or named any suspects as of Thursday, an NYPD spokesperson said. The department's Collision Investigation Squad planned to investigate the crash.

Safe streets advocates have condemned Guzman's death as preventable and part of a tragic pattern. At least 20 cyclists have been killed while riding their bicycles in New York City so far this year, according to the group Transportation Alternatives.

Streetsblog reported that the intersection at 97th and 2nd saw 37 crashes between 2017 and 2019, injuring three cyclists, seven pedestrians and one motorist, according to Crashmapper.

"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," Danny Harris, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement Monday.

Previous coverage: Delivery Bicyclist Killed By Upper East Side Hit-And-Run Driver