UPDATE: Teen E-Moto Rider Killed on Centre Street in Heart of Civic Manhattan

This story was fully updated at 7 p.m. with new information.

The rider of an illegal motor-bike was killed on his way to work on Wednesday morning in Lower Manhattan outside of the protected bike lane that conveys cyclists northbound from the Brooklyn Bridge path.

Gabriel Nacato was riding a Deepower e-moto — an illegal electric bike weighing 103 pounds and carrying a 1,500-watt motor — that he had just received for commuting between his Bensonhurst home and a job in Manhattan at around 8:50 a.m. when he was struck by, or crashed into, an SUV on Centre Street just north of Chambers Street.

A Streetsblog reporter found Nacato’s body minutes after the crash, in the roadway, not in the protected bike lane, surrounded by his motor-bike and an enormous pool of blood.

The car involved in the crash was a bit further up the road. The driver, 40, was interviewed by police and not immediately charged. The record on the car includes three speed-camera tickets since 2024.

Nacato, 17, was outside of the Centre Street center-running bike lane — though it is illegal for e-moto users to use city bike lanes (but also the roadways). The segment of Centre Street north of Chambers, where the driver and e-moto rider were sharing space, is exceptionally narrow and is often filled with parked cars, narrowing the space further.

But there were no illegally parked cars at the scene of the crash on Wednesday.

The Deepower e-moto is marketed as “legal,” but it has a 30 mph top speed, which is not legal.

“Feel the rush, legally,” the company website states. The FAQ page of that website gives detailed instructions on how to make the illegal two-wheeler even faster:

A family member at the apartment in Bensonhurst told Streetsblog that Nacato got the illegal e-moto four months ago from his uncle, who purchased it online. He worked and went to school in Manhattan, so he rides that route regularly, the family member added.

“He did not normally wear a helmet,” the family member said, a habit that the family did not like.

Mayor Mamdani called the family in the afternoon. In remarks to reporters earlier in the day, the mayor said his administration would focus on improving infrastructure so that all people can be safe, no matter the mode of transportation. He also said he would work with city and state officials to reduce sales of illegal motorbikes.

“You should be just as safe whether you are driving a car, walking, biking, getting on a bus or getting on the train,” he said. “Our focus has, by and large, been on the question of infrastructure to make sure that safety is delivered because we know that oftentimes the absence or the presence of infrastructure is the determinative factor.

“When it goes into the question of illegal e-bikes,” the mayor added, “there is a question at both the city and at the state level … to make sure that only the safest methods of transit are the ones that are legally permissible are the ones that are actually being used across New York City.”

According to the NYPD, 16 motorcyclists have been killed in crashes this year, up from 10 over the same period last year.

In the wake of the crash, activists and politicians blasted e-moto companies for marketing their products as legal. Ben Furnas of Transportation Alternatives called on state officials to prevent vendors from selling these products in New York State.

“No one should be able to buy an illegal high-speed device on the internet and have it shipped to New York,” he said in a statement. “These devices are a threat to everyone — regardless of whether you’re riding on one yourself or walking or biking near one.

“Now, another New Yorker is dead. Attorney General Letitia James can show leadership by issuing a consumer alert to warn New Yorkers before another life is lost on our streets. New Yorkers deserve to know if what they’re trying to buy is illegal and dangerous.”

The reference to James is apt; her counterpart in California issued just such an alert, prompting Amazon to stop shipping such illegal two-wheelers to California customers. Locally, pols have called on James to do the same thing, as Streetsblog reported.

Council Member Shaun Abreu of Harlem echoed that.