Friends Mourn Boy, 14, Who Was Killed While Riding Bicycle In Park Slope
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Friends on Sunday were mourning a 14-year-old boy who was killed while riding his bicycle this weekend in Brooklyn.
As CBS2's Dave Carlin reported, friends said Edwin Vicente Ajacalon has no family in New York City, and his financially-strapped parents in Guatemala will have great difficulty coming in.
Flowers and a candle were set up Sunday on the side of Park Slope's Fifth Avenue, where Edwin was killed while riding his bicycle around 5:45 p.m. Saturday.
Diana Popoca said her heart is broken. She knew the young victim as a friend of her son's and made dinners for them.
Surveillance video from a store on the block shows the boy pedaling along 23rd Street, and then riding across Fifth Avenue with a car heading right for him.
After the boy was fatally struck, the driver stayed on the scene and was not charged with any crime.
Popoca says the victim's mother and father live in Guatemala.
"He's got no family in this country," Popoca said through an interpreter.
She said the parents were told their son is dead, but do not have the money to travel to the U.S. and retrieve his body.
Edwin moved to Brooklyn a year ago. After living briefly with his only relative in the U.S., an uncle. He met this man who took him in and described him as "hardworking."
That man got a call early Sunday morning from police saying the boy was dead.
He said the teen was a pleasant roommate who worked various jobs, including food delivery, to pay rent and send money home to his parents.
The teen lived in a single room with five young men -- all of them working delivering food on bikes.
Friends said Edwin's life was a struggle , and he never even made it to 15.
The driver of the car was taken to the hospital for an evaluation.