Driver Charged After Fatal Gramercy Crash on Third Avenue
Mahbub Ali was charged with manslaughter and DWI after a June 4, 2023 crash at Third Avenue and East 21st Street where Abdulhekim Esiyok died and city records list four injuries.
What We Know
A city crash record lists one person killed and four people injured at Third Avenue and East 21st Street, with alcohol involvement recorded as a contributing factor. Press accounts identified the driver as Mahbub Ali, 26, and said police and prosecutors charged or indicted him on counts including manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter or homicide, assault and DWI. The record lists the person killed as a 23-year-old bicyclist; news accounts identified the victim as Abdulhekim Esiyok, while disagreeing on whether he was walking in a crosswalk or riding a bicycle.
The crash left one person dead and four others injured
The city record places the crash at 7:28 p.m. on June 4, 2023, at Third Avenue and East 21st Street in Manhattan, and lists one person killed and four people injured. Press accounts largely described the crash as happening just before or around 7:30 p.m.; one Daily News story reported 8:16 p.m.
Police and prosecutors identified the driver as Mahbub Ali, 26. News accounts said he was driving north on Third Avenue in a Hyundai Sonata before the fatal impact and the injuries that followed.
Sources disagree on how Abdulhekim Esiyok was traveling
The city crash record lists the person killed as a 23-year-old male bicyclist. Police-based Daily News and New York Post reports described a 23-year-old man as a pedestrian crossing Third Avenue in a marked crosswalk. amNY, citing the indictment announcement, described Abdulhekim Esiyok as a 22-year-old cyclist riding a bicycle.
The Post later identified Esiyok as a Turkish migrant who had been in the United States only a few months. A friend told the paper that Esiyok had come from rural Agri in eastern Turkey, searched for steady work in New York and hoped to send money home to his family.
Prosecutors alleged drinking and speeding
The city crash record lists alcohol involvement as a contributing factor, and the vehicle record for the sedan lists alcohol involvement and unsafe speed. Police said Ali faced charges including manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, assault and DWI; prosecutors later announced an indictment that included aggravated vehicular homicide, second-degree manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and DWI counts.
amNY reported that prosecutors said Ali had been drinking earlier that day before driving north on Third Avenue with a passenger in the front seat.
The records and reports identify multiple vehicles in the crash
The city record lists a 2021 Hyundai sedan, a parked 2013 Chevrolet classified as a station wagon or SUV, and two e-bikes. Press accounts described Ali as driving a Hyundai Sonata and described the parked Chevrolet as an unoccupied Express van.
The official record lists one motorist, one cyclist and two pedestrians injured, in addition to the person killed. The Post reported that Ali’s front-seat passenger was among the injured people taken to Bellevue Hospital.
Third Avenue has a long record of serious crashes
The crash happened at Third Avenue and East 21st Street in Gramercy. CrashCountNYC’s street context for Third Avenue in Manhattan shows 2,262 crashes, 1,314 injuries, 109 serious injuries and 10 deaths since 2022.
Witnesses described screams, debris and emergency care
A doorman near the scene told the Daily News the crash sounded like “an explosion like a bomb” and said people were screaming. Another nearby resident told the paper that people were on the ground, bystanders began triage quickly, and pieces of car and bike were strewn around the scene.
The Post reported that first responders worked around crushed e-bikes and that injured people were taken to Bellevue Hospital.