Police on New York’s Long Island are searching for the driver of an SUV who struck and killed a gas station worker after attempting to flee without paying.
The 59-year-old victim was hit by a dark-colored SUV in front of the Pit Stop Gas Station in South Hempstead on Monday just before 7:30 a.m., the Nassau County Police Department wrote in a wanted poster featuring an image of the suspect.
The driver left the scene, and the victim was later pronounced dead at a local hospital, police said.
The victim, identified by ABC New York station WABC as Cemal Dagdeviren of Levittown, was an auto mechanic and had gone to assist the station’s gas attendant after the suspect refused to pay for $22 worth of gas, the local station reported.
Cemal Dagdeviren’s son, Ali Dagdeviren, 35, described his father as a “good” and “hard-working man,” adding that the family is hurting.
“He was dad. It’s not easy for us,” Ali Dagdeviren told WABC. “All he cared about was us, his kids, mom, family.”
Police have released photos of the vehicle, which appears to be a GMC Yukon from the early 1990s, and has damage on the front end as well as a missing headlight on the driver’s side of the car.
A surveillance photo of the suspect shows him wearing an orange knit cap and gray or light-colored hoodie.
Additional details on the hit and run were not immediately available.
ABC News’ Greg Croft contributed to this report.
