‘Justice’ sought in cyclist hit-run

The chance for a few hours’ pay on the evening of Sept. 23 cost struggling Mexican immigrant Victorio Hilario-Guzman his life.

The 37-year-old delivery cyclist was snacking on tortillas and seltzer with his brother Elias at their home in the Bronx’s Fordham Manor neighborhood around 6 p.m. when he got an alert on his phone.

The notification was from the food delivery service DoorDash. The two brothers shared an account that had been temporarily suspended, but Victorio had suddenly received approval to work again. After work dried up at another delivery job at a Midtown deli in March, he was eager for a day’s pay.

“He grabbed his backpack, put on his hat and he left,” Elias said in Spanish. “He didn’t say anything to me.”

Elias never saw his brother alive again.

Around 7:45 p.m. Victorio was riding his delivery bike along E. 180th St. at Grand Concourse en route to pick up food to deliver from a Popeye’s on 182nd St. when a driver turned into the intersection, knocking him down.

The driver sped off, said police. Victorio was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital. He could not be saved.

“They hit him, they killed him, they drove over him and they left,” said Elias, who decided with two of their other brothers to pull Victorio off life support that night after finding out he was left brain dead from the crash.

“I know my brother… he always drove the bike with a lot of precautions. He never ran a red light, he always stayed in the bike lane.”

Police are still investigating the crash — but so far have made no arrests.

“What we want is justice,” said Elias. “He’s not an animal. My brother is a person, a human. There’s a guilty person walking free right now.”

Victorio was the last of seven cyclists to die riding on city streets in September — the highest number recorded in a single month since Mayor de Blasio took office in 2014 and launched a program called Vision Zero aimed at ending traffic deaths.

He came to New York 17 years go with the hope of a better life. Elias, 43, came a year before, and their two brothers Celso, 41, and Ruben, 30, joined them and remained a close-knit family, thousands of miles from home.

Victorio had no wife or children, only his brothers. They’ve kept his delivery backpack on a chair he used to sit in since he died.

“He liked to play basketball in Mexico,” said Elias. “But with work, when we came here, one no longer has time to play.”

The brothers’ parents still live in Mexico and have not seen Victorio since he left 17 years ago. Now the family is trying to raise money to send his body home.

“My parents are suffering in Mexico, because they were hoping to see their son return alive,” said Elias. “My father said that he, being poor, let his son come here to find his life. Not to steal, not to be a delinquent, but to work.

“My brother has always been a worker. And the way he lost his life, we just can’t accept it.”