Driver charged after Bronx hit-and-run kills e-bike rider
At Melrose Avenue and East 161st Street, where city data recorded a fatal e-bike crash before 6 a.m., police later charged Edward Montero with manslaughter and leaving the scene in Thierno Balde’s death.
What We Know
Thierno Balde, 24, was killed before 6 a.m. on Feb. 23, 2024, at Melrose Avenue and East 161st Street in the Bronx. City crash data records an SUV and an e-bike, with unsafe speed assigned to the SUV driver and traffic-control disregard assigned to the e-bike rider. Police and prosecutors later said Edward Montero was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee south on Melrose Avenue with a green light when Balde crossed eastbound after ignoring a steady red light; the driver hit Balde and left. Early reports described video of a woman leaving a smoking Jeep after the crash, while later police accounts said Montero was arrested and identified as the driver nearly a year later.
Before sunrise in Melrose
The city crash record places the crash at 5:58 a.m. on Feb. 23, 2024, at Melrose Avenue and East 161st Street. It records one person killed: a 24-year-old male e-bike rider.
Investigators later said Edward Montero was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee south on Melrose Avenue with a green light when Thierno Balde crossed eastbound after ignoring a steady red light. The driver hit Balde and left the scene, according to police accounts cited after the arrest.
Balde was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln, where he was pronounced dead.
Speed and a red light were central to the accounts
City data records unsafe speed for the SUV driver and traffic-control disregard for the e-bike rider. News 12 reported that police said Balde ran a red light and that the driver was speeding; later arrest coverage said investigators described Montero as having the green light when Balde crossed eastbound after ignoring a steady red light.
East 161st Street has a heavy crash record
The fatal crash was recorded at Melrose Avenue and East 161st Street in the Bronx. CrashCountNYC’s location context for East 161st Street counted 588 crashes, 369 injuries, 28 serious injuries and 2 deaths from Jan. 1, 2022, through June 1, 2026.
Thierno Balde had recently come to New York
Mamadou Balde told the New York Post that his brother Thierno, a native of Guinea, had moved to New York five months earlier, was studying English and was on his way to morning prayers at a nearby mosque when he was killed. He said Thierno had earned a bachelor’s degree in bank insurance in Guinea and hoped to pursue bank insurance or computer science.
Mamadou Balde said their mother wanted justice and asked the driver to come forward: “Have a little bit of conscience.”
The official vehicle field conflicts with press accounts
The official crash record lists a 2024 Jeep SUV and a Fly E-Bike. It records the e-bike traveling east and going straight before the crash, but it lists the SUV pre-crash movement as parked, while police accounts in multiple news reports described a driver traveling south on Melrose Avenue before the impact.
A charge followed months later
Police announced on Feb. 18, 2025, that Edward Montero, 28, had been arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting. Reports citing police said investigators had identified him as the driver after months of work by the NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad.
Early coverage described surveillance video of a woman leaving a smoking Jeep near East 158th Street after the crash, and News 12 said police released footage of a suspect. Later arrest reports said police took Montero into custody and identified him as the driver. The reviewed sources do not explain the discrepancy.