Family seeks hit-and-run driver

TEXAS CITY — Victor Ramirez, a retired Amoco Oil pipe fitter, was hit by a car while riding his bicycle last week. He died just feet away from the refinery’s fence line and a couple of blocks from his house.

His family posted signs at that fence, hoping someone will come forward to identify the hit-and-run driver.

“I was angry,” Ramirez’s daughter Delia Gonzales said. “I didn’t have any understanding of why someone would do something like that. You would think people would be, you know ... they would be a better person and just stop.”

The hit-and-run happened at Fourth Avenue South and 14th Street about 6:30 p.m. June 7, police said. Ramirez, 79, was riding his bike south on 14th Street when he entered the intersection and was struck by a car that was turning onto 14th Street from Fourth Avenue.

Witnesses told police that the driver of the car stopped briefly, looked back at Ramirez and took off. The car was described by witnesses as a Pontiac Bonneville or Grand Prix with tinted windows and distinct chrome-covered “blade” wheels.

On Thursday, police released a photo of the type of wheels that were on the car.

Witnesses told police the car’s front windows were rolled down and that a man was driving. A woman was a passenger in the car.

Witnesses told police they saw the driver mouth something as he looked back and drove east on Fifth Avenue South. The witnesses, however, did not take note of the car’s license plate number.

“You would think they would be decent and try to call 911,” Gonzales said.

The family described the Korean War veteran as a man’s man, tough, sturdy, but always willing to help others out.

“He was a man always staying busy,” Ramirez’s daughter Janice Huffman said. “Our dad was the last of his kind.”

Ramirez rode his bike everywhere. He was forced to stick with two wheels after he lost an eye to an attacker whom he offered a ride three years ago.

“Police never did find the guy who beat him up then,” Gonzales said. “We won’t let this crime go unpunished.”

Police said the driver who hit Ramirez was not at fault, based on witnesses’ accounts of the accident, but the fact he fled the scene made the incident a crime. The driver of the car faces a failure to stop and render aid charge.

“Turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness,” Gonzales pleaded in a call to the driver of the car. “Give the family a rest and let the family know what happened. If it was an accident, it was an accident.

“I would just give myself up and try to pray for help (and) try to be a better person ....”

Police said a grainy video captured by a security camera at BP’s Texas City refinery shows the accident but does little to give a better description of the car that left the scene. Police also are looking for the driver of a Dodge Durango truck who saw the accident but told others at the scene he was going after the hit-and-run driver.

The Durango driver never returned, Detective Darrell Matheson said.

Anyone with information should call Texas City Crime Stoppers at 409-945-8477.