Teenager on Illegal E-bike Killed in Centre Street Crash

The promises of “micromobility” met the hard reality of sudden death, again, when just before 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday July 29, a Brooklyn teenager and his illegal e-bike collided with the rear of a 2008 black Chevy Tahoe crashed at Centre and Chambers Streets.

According to his sister, Gabriel Nacato, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, had just ridden over the Brooklyn Bridge and was on his way to Chinatown in search of a summer job. If numerous questions remain unanswered in this account—including why the city has tolerated and even encouraged the operation of illegal e-bikes for years—they are overshadowed for the moment by grief. “He was a beautiful boy. He was loved by everyone,” said his sister, 25-year-old Fernanda Nacato. “We’re all crying. We all miss him.”

The vehicle Gabriel Nacato was riding appeared to be a Deepower brand a QS7 High-Performance Electric Bike. Presently it’s available online direct from Deepower for $649, and its webpage includes the descriptive url, “qs7-long-range-electric-fat-tire-ebike.” Though the e-bike is advertised as having 20 mph maximum speed, this is a purposeful deceptive, as its speed governor can be easily disabled. Indeed, a YouTube video review of the QS7 claims a top speed of 32 mph.

Likewise deceptive are the e-bikes pedals, chains and gears. Not once in the same video does the rider pedal one stroke, even while cruising along, in what he described as a a motorcyle-like position, at speeds in excess of 25 mph.

Based on eyewitness testimony from the Daily News, at the time of the incident, there was a loud bang, and Nacato was seen on the ground unresponsive. The driver, a 40-year-old woman, got out to check on Nacato while on the phone, pacing around. Nacato was declared deceased on the scene.

The location of the fatal collision had mutiple layers of irony. First, the vicinity of Centre and Chambers Streets—just in front of the Municipal Building—is where many bicyclists and others will begin or end their NYC DOT’s Summer Streets adventures. Second, in the spring the DOT and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced and effected a Centre Street “bike lane” redesign to improve access to the Brooklyn Bridge, linking it to a predicted World Cup tourist surge.

Tellingly—and not for first time—the DOT renderings of the design showed only muscle powered pedal bicycles: no illegal e-bikes, mopeds, sit-down and stand-up scooters, or electric monowheels that also use the Brooklyn Bridge erstwhile “bike lane.”

Following Nacato’s death, local Council Member Christopher Marte issued a statement acknowledging the tragedy. “I extend my deepest condolences to his family; our hearts are with them during this incredibly difficult time,” Marte said. “For years, we have been warning that the intersection of Chambers Street and Centre Street is extremely dangerous and needs safety improvements, but we were told it was not a priority.”

“While recent improvements to the bike lane entering the Brooklyn Bridge are welcome,” Marte continued, “Today’s tragedy shows they are not enough.”

Today’s Tragedy Years in the Making

While Marte’s statement is fair, it’s perhaps incomplete. Straus News has ridden a pedal bicycle, walked and ran on and off the Brooklyn Bridge, to and from Chambers and Centre Streets, literally 1000s of times.

By far the number one factor of this approach is rider awareness: whether it was the sea of tourists on the bridge walkway before there was a dedicated bike lane, or the flow of car traffic off the bridge. Patience and high level of situational awareness was and when practiced, safely yet excitinly let one into the open spaces of Centre Street heading north or Chambers Street heading west.

The proliferation first of CitiBikes, then electric CitiBikes, then modest delivery e-bikes and the occasional gas-powered moped into the near-total anarchy of today, including many unskilled and reckless “micromobility” vehicle operators has made nearly every pedal bicyclist and pedestrian feel imperiled at some point.

Without explicitly addressing the above problems, Marte raised the issue of Class-3 e-bikes legislation, a legal gray area of banned e-bikes that leaves out unclassified bikes like Nacatos. Class-3 is specified as a motor that provides pedal assistance up to 28 mph and a motor size under 750W.

Marte requested that the City Council pass “Int. 244, which would prohibit the sale of Class-3 e-bikes,” he continued. “We must restrict the fastest of these e-bikes to ensure our streets are safe for cyclists, pedestrians, and car drivers.” Nacato’s bike had a 960-watt motor and could travel up to 30 mph, police said.

Marte, it should be noted, was also a supoprter of Priscilla’s Law, named for a woman from his district, Priscilla Loke, who was hit and killed by a reckless e-biker in Chinatown, that would require that e-bikes and scooters and the like have and license plates and be registered.

“The scourge of e-bikes in our streets, on our sidewalks, and even inside our buildings continues to wreak chaos, injure and maim people, and, tragically, take lives,” said then Council Member Bob Holden when the bill was introduced in December 2024.

Opposition from paid micromobility advocates, migrant advocates, the NYC Hospitality Alliance (whose restaurants want the benefits of the delivery economy), including the DOT, kiboshed the bill. Curiously, this left the Adams administration in opposition with itself, with NYPD conducting crackdowns and confiscations—which were often criticized—while various DOT bike-lane redesigns and proposals further incentivized e-bike, e-scooter and moped use of both the legal and illegal variety.

Mayor Mamdani empathized with Nacato's family, saying, “We should all mourn when we see that a family will have to live with that tragedy hovering over their lives for not just weeks or months, but frankly years and decades to come.”