EAST WILLIAMSBURG — Police are now offering up to $2,500 for tips on the death of a cycling enthusiast and bartender who was run down while riding in the bike lane on Grand Street nearly a month ago.
Last week, police posted signs offering a cash reward for information near where Matthew von Ohlen, 35, was fatally struck and left in the street by a driver who fled the scene on July 2.
Several days after von Ohlen's death police announced that they'd tracked down the Chevy Camaro thought to be involved in the crash, but weeks later still no arrests have been made.
"This person is a danger," Joan von Ohlen, Matthew's mother, told DNAinfo New York from Minneapolis, where she lives. "I want that person off the road so that [they] can't hurt anybody else. That's what I want."
At at 2:37 a.m. July 2, von Ohlen, a bartender at Apotheke in Chinatown and a co-founder of Bikestock, which offers 24-hour bike-repair vending machines with three locations in North Brooklyn, was pedaling east on Grand Street in near the intersection of Graham Avenue. A driver crashed into him and then left him behind, police said.
Von Ohlen was taken to Bellevue Hospital and pronounced dead, police said.
"He was on this trajectory...at his own pace making the world a better place," Joan von Ohlen said, adding that Matthew was her only child. "It was cut way too short."
Anyone with information about the hit-and-run driver is asked to call NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.