Jerry Gelle Sentenced in Fatal Bed-Stuy Hit-and-Run
The Return
At 3:07 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2024, at Bedford and Lafayette avenues in Brooklyn, Jerry Gelle drove north through a red light in a Jeep Grand Cherokee and hit 49-year-old Felix Mendez in a crosswalk, prosecutors said; official records list one pedestrian killed.
What We Know
Felix Mendez, 49, died after Jerry Gelle drove north on Bedford Avenue through a red light at Lafayette Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant and hit him in a crosswalk, prosecutors said. The official crash record lists a 3:07 a.m. collision on Oct. 10, 2024, involving a northbound 2024 Jeep SUV, with unsafe speed and traffic-control disregard recorded for the driver. Prosecutors said Gelle had driven more than 50 mph, fled without stopping, later abandoned the Jeep, and was arrested in July 2025. In 2026, he pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, then received a five-to-10-year prison sentence.
What prosecutors said happened before dawn
The official record places the crash at 3:07 a.m. on Oct. 10, 2024, at Bedford Avenue and Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, where one pedestrian was killed and no other injuries were recorded. Prosecutors said Jerry Gelle drove north on Bedford Avenue at about 53 mph, went through a steady red light, and hit Felix Mendez in the middle of the crosswalk.
Prosecutors said surveillance from the minutes before the crash showed Gelle driving through multiple red lights, in bike lanes, and past speed cameras. The official crash record lists unsafe speed and traffic-control disregard for the driver of the northbound 2024 Jeep SUV.
Bedford and Lafayette avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant
The crash happened at the intersection of Bedford Avenue and Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn’s 11205 ZIP code. Prosecutors described the location as Bedford-Stuyvesant, and early news coverage placed the crash in that neighborhood.
Brooklyn Eagle reported the next day that traffic-safety advocates had been pushing for improvements on the street for more than a year.
Felix Mendez lived near where he died
The official record identifies the person killed as a 49-year-old male pedestrian. Later reports identified him as Felix Mendez, 49, of Lafayette Avenue, and the Daily News reported he was near his Bedford-Stuyvesant home when the driver hit him.
The Post reported that Mendez had come to the United States around 1999 and was working to fund construction of a house in Puebla, Mexico. His friend and neighbor Alejandro Flores told the paper that Mendez’s father had also died in a hit-and-run in Mexico decades earlier.
Investigators tied Gelle to a Jeep Grand Cherokee
The official record lists a 2024 Jeep SUV traveling north with one male driver and center-front-end damage. Prosecutors later described the SUV as a gray 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee, while early Daily News and News 12 reports described a white SUV.
Prosecutors said Gelle fled without stopping to render aid or report the crash, later tried to sanitize the Jeep’s interior, and abandoned it about four blocks away. NYPD recovered the Jeep, and prosecutors said DNA on the gear shift linked Gelle to the case.
Gelle pleaded guilty and received a prison sentence
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced that Jerry Gelle, 32, of Brooklyn, pleaded guilty on March 11, 2026, to second-degree manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Warin sentenced him to five to 10 years in prison.
The Brooklyn Eagle also reported the sentence, describing the case as a fatal hit-and-run crash in Bedford-Stuyvesant.