Cops: Deranged ma slays 4 kids
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A BICYCLING buff who had d his own 24-hour repair service e for fellow riders was killed by a hit-and-run driver as he ped- aled through Brooklyn early y Saturday.
Matthew Von Ohlen, 35, was s navigating the bike lane on n Grand St. near Manhattan Ave. . in Williamsburg about 2:30 0 a.m. when a black Chevy Cama- ro with tinted windows slammed into him, police said.
Surveillance video caught the driver dragging the cyclist 30 feet.
“The car just hit him and left,” said a witness who declined to give his name. “That sucks. That poor guy.”
The car bounced up and down as it rolled over the victim, then dragged the dying man and his bike down the street, video taken from a surveillance camera at a nearby restaurant shows.
Moments after the Camaro left, the driver of another vehicle stopped after coming upon the gruesome scene. Several good Samaritans also ran to the victim to try to help.
Emergency Medical Service workers soon arrived and took Von Ohlen to Bellevue Hospi- tal, but he could not be saved.
“He was killed like a dog in the street,” neighbor Joanne Bascetta, 53, said of the victim. Although Bascetta did not know the bicyclist, she left flowers at the spot where he was hit.
“He’s someone’s child,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking. I just came out for support. I feel so bad for the family.”
Von Ohlen, a native of Minneapolis, co-founded Bikestock, which operates self-serve bike repair kiosks in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Massachusetts.
Von Ohlen “lives and breathes cycling,” according to his bio on the company’s website.
The avid cyclist’s heartbroken friends said Von Ohlen had been riding home from his job as a bar- tender at Apotheke in Manhattan when he was struck.
“He really listened when you spoke. And he really cared about humanity,” said Chloe Sabin, 31, Von Ohlen’s ex-girlfriend.
She said Von Ohlen’s desire to help people was part of the reason he started Bikestock. “He was a very driven person,” said her brother, Sam Sabin.
Investigators at the collision scene were scouring the area Saturday for more surveillance footage of the crash.
Police said the Camaro was last seen heading east on Grand St. toward Queens.
The grisly death is the latest in a surge of bicycle deaths in the city this year.
Eleven bicyclists had been killed in the city through last Thursday — compared with five during the corresponding time period a year earlier, according to NYPD statistics.
City officials say one explanation might be that more people are commuting by bicycle.
According to the most recent estimates, about 750,000 New Yorkers ride a bike on a regular basis — 250,000 more than just five years earlier, officials said. About 86,000 adults use a bike to commute to work every day, officials said.
In unrelated incidents, two pedestrians were hospitalized in critical condition after being struck by vehicles in separate crashes in the Bronx on Friday night. A TENNESSEE mother has been a arrested for fatally stabbing four o of her children, all younger than 4 4, inside her Memphis-area apartm ment.
Shanynthia Gardner, 29, was c charged with four counts of murd der for the horrific crime after Shelby County deputies found the children, 6 months and 2-, 3-, and 4 4-years old, knifed to death on Frid day.
A fifth child, Gardner’s 7-yearold son, was able to escape the apartment, Shelby County sheriff’s office spokesman Earle Farrell told the Daily News.
“He was able to get out of the house unharmed,” Farrell said, adding that the family of Gardner’s husband, the boy’s stepfather, is caring for him now.