Family Mourns Dad Killed In Inwood Hit-And-Run: 'I Just Want Justice'

INWOOD, NY — Felix Rosario Acosta was finishing up a late-night taxi shift on Christmas Eve, 2021, when he found a parking spot in Inwood, his family later told Patch. Knowing that he would be working late, Acosta, a grandfather from White Plains, had rented a room in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood to spend the night instead of driving back home.

Acosta never made it to that room.

The 63-year-old man stepped out of his car on the corner of Nagle Avenue and Arden Street and was hit by a black Mercedes Benz, according to police reports. Acosta was left badly hurt on the cement as the car fled the scene.

Acosta would spend the next 10 months in hospitals, where he eventually died on Oct. 22 from injuries sustained in the hit and run, police and his family confirm.

“He was very friendly, loving, caring," Claribel Rosario, Acosta's daughter, told Patch. "He was involved with his family, he loved myself and my brother, and daughters."

With a single step, Acosta joined hundreds who have been injured in nearly 400 collisions in Inwood since the start of 2021.

And, since that December day when a driver hit the gas and drove away, Rosario's life has been defined by a COVID-19 hospital visitation rule that limited the little time she had left with her father, what she describes as a lackluster performance from the local precinct and an NYPD policy that prevented experts from investigating until Acosta's death.

“The person that did this, I just want them to be taken off the street so that another family doesn’t have to endure what we endured," Rosario said. “I just want justice for my dad."

Always There When I Needed Him

Before the crash that ultimately claimed his life, Acosta was the kind of grandfather who visited his daughter's Bronx home almost every day to see his two grandchildren, his family said.

“He was a wonderful uncle," Ramon Salazar, Acosta's nephew, told Patch. "Kind, loving, and caring."

But six days past without a visit before Rosario received a call from Harlem Hospital to say her father had been badly hurt, the distraught daughter said.

“When I finally got the doctor on the phone, all he told me was that my dad was brought in after a traumatic accident," she said. "He didn’t know if he was the driver, if he was the pedestrian, he didn’t know."

Rosario eventually found out that Acosta had been placed into an induced coma after suffering a head injury and breaks to his ribs, collarbone, chest and shoulder blades, she said.

Since it was during the Omicron COVID variant surge in the city, Rosario was only allowed to visit her father for mere minutes.

"When I saw my dad I started crying because he didn’t look like himself," she told Patch. “He suffered a lot when he was in the hospital."

The hospital resumed normal hours in February as the COVID surge slowed, and Rosario began daily visits to see her father, whom she believes felt emotions and understood his family was there.

“[He was] an amazing brother, always there when I needed him," Acosta's sister Maria Rosario, told Patch. "Always willing to help and go above and beyond."

And while he received regular visits from his daughter, sister and a son — who lives with brain development issues after a case of meningitis when he was 5 — Acosta never spoke again.

"Yes I was there every day, but it wasn’t the same," Rosario said. "I lost my father, I lost my right hand, I lost my everything.

"He was a fighter. He didn’t want to die, it wasn’t his time, he was a very healthy man.”

Doesn’t It Bother You?

There have been no arrests made relating to the hit-and-run that claimed Acosta's life in October, according to his family and police reports.

Rosario puts the blame on the driver who sped away, but also questions an NYPD policy she was told prevented its specialized patrol branch from investigating until her father had died.

For 10 months, the investigation remained with Upper Manhattan's 34th Precinct, whose officers never called Rosario to tell her Acosta had been hurt, she said.

Data show the 34th Precinct sees hundreds of car crashes with 399 — 152 with injuries and 32 involving a pedestrian — reported since Jan. 1, 2021, in the ZIP code where Acosta was fatally struck, according to 311 data.

But those numbers pale in comparison to some of the Lower Manhattan areas such as the Lower East Side's 10002 ZIP code, where there have been more than 1,300 car accidents since the start of 2021.

Rosario added that she called the detective assigned to the case every week, but only got through five times.

The day after Acosta died, Rosario got a call from an NYPD Highway Patrol detective who explained the challenges he faced launching an investigation months after the crash had occurred, she said.

He also told her not to call the detective anymore previously assigned to her father's case from the 34th Precinct.

There was no footage of the crash — which happened behind a speed camera — and a witness had refused to come forward with information, the detective said.

“It’s going to be difficult to obtain any video footage because now eleven months have passed and most cameras don't store for that long," the detective told Rosario, she said.

"He has subpoenaed the nearby building’s to get footage and said that the witness is not being cooperative.”

Now Rosario, who wants justice for her father and closure for her family, says all that's left is the hope the witness decide to cooperate or the driver might step forward, she told Patch.

"Don’t they have a conscious," Rosario said in a direct appeal to the person who fatally struck her father with his car on Christmas Eve. "Doesn’t it bother you?”