Brooklyn bodega worker killed by fugitive hit-and-run driver while walking bicycle across Brooklyn street

A Brooklyn woman, accompanying her husband on his evening walk home from work, watched in horror as a hit-and-run driver ran him down.

Victim Jose Ramos, 56, was killed just three blocks from his Cypress Hills home after finishing his Friday night shift at a local bodega, with wife Martha Rodriguez only a few steps behind her doomed spouse when the car plowed into him, cops said.

The wife, with her sister-in-law translating, said Ramos was walking his bicycle through a crosswalk with the light when the car slammed suddenly into her spouse shortly after 10 p.m. Ramos and his bike were sent flying down Atlantic Ave. by the impact as the driver fled into the night, she recalled Saturday.

“He was crossing first and the car hit him,” recalled Rodriguez. “The bicycle was unrecognizable.”

Ramos had called his wife because he was scared about taking the mile-long walk to their home by himself, the dead man’s spouse said. The white or light-colored sedan was traveling west along Atlantic Ave. when Ramos was hit, and police were still hunting a fugitive driver who bolted without stopping, police said.

Police found Ramos lying in the street suffering from massive head and body injuries. EMS rushed him to Interfaith Medical Center, where the victim died.

“The guy hit him and ran away,” said the victim’s brother Fausto Ramos. “He’s got to pay for that.”

A memorial at the bodega where Ramos worked for eight years drew weeping family and friends to remember the father of a 6-year-old daughter.

“You would see him out here cleaning the snow,” said Fausto Ramos, who worked at the same store. “Everybody loved him. He’s a good father.”

In a macabre twist, Ramos’ widow later spotted the damaged hit-and-run vehicle on the corner near her Brooklyn home, according to another sister of the victim.

“She saw the same car, with damage and everything,” recounted Ysabel De La Cruz. “She went inside to call me, but when (she) went out, they moved the car.”

According to police, the city recorded 92 pedestrian fatalities through last Thursday — up from 69 over the same period of 2020.

De La Cruz said her sibling never had a chance at survival as his killer sped away from the scene.

“When I went to the hospital, they said he was dead in the moment,” she said. “He had no chance to come back.”