NEW HAVEN, CT — A New Haven Superior Court jury on Sept. 29 found a 57-year-old New Haven man guilty of evading responsibility in the February 2023 hit-and-run that killed 17-year-old Bryan Ramirez-Gutierrez on Sherman Parkway, the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice said in an Oct. 1 release.
According to the evidence at trial, the man was driving on Sherman Parkway near Harding Place on Feb. 1, 2023, when his vehicle hit Ramirez-Gutierrez, a New Haven resident. Prosecutors said he drove off right away and never reported the crash to police. The verdict was on a single count under Connecticut General Statutes § 14-224(a), the law that requires a driver involved in a crash to stop and report it.
Ramirez-Gutierrez was a senior at Hillhouse High School, and the crash happened at about 3 a.m., NBC Connecticut reported in February 2024, when city police announced that the driver had been arrested Jan. 29 of that year. His family said then that he had planned to join the Air Force after graduation.
Investigators from the city police department's Accident Reconstruction Team identified the driver after the crash. The State's Attorney's Office also thanked the state forensic science lab, part of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, and an FBI special agent in New Haven for help with the investigation.