A New York City taxi driver who was brutally beaten to death over the weekend leaves behind a wife and four young children, some of whom first learned of his death shortly after a press conference on Sunday.
Kutin Gyimah, 52, was killed early Saturday after five suspects who had been passengers attempted to rob him in the Edgemere neighborhood of Queens shortly before 6:30 a.m., WNBC-TV reports.
Gyimah began chasing the robbers – three men and two women – when one of them struck him and caused him to fall into the street, where his head slammed against the pavement.
Police said Gyimah suffered severe wounds, and he was rushed to St. John’s Hospital, where he was declared dead.
The husband and father had just left his home in the Bronx 90 minutes earlier.
On Sunday, Gyimah’s loved ones and his fellow taxi drivers held a press conference calling for justice and urging the suspects to turn themselves in.
Gyimah’s widow, Abigail, said her husband was a good person.
“I have no words to describe him. He was a good man. He was a good, good man,” Abigail told reporters, according to WABC-TV.
And it was at the press conference where some of the couple’s four children – ages 3, 5, 7 and 8 – stood by their mother, the oldest ones crying as they saw their mother cry, the New York Daily News reports.
Abigail later told news outlets that she broke the news of her husband’s death to the oldest children after the event, according to the New York Post.
The eldest kids were initially told that their father had returned to Africa because “it’s a custom to not tell kids about death when they are very young,” Richmond Awuah, Gyimah’s brother, told the Post.
However, after the press conference, the family explained to the elder children that their father had died.
As for the youngest of the kids, the family said they cannot even understand what has happened.
Abigail urged Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD to find and arrest the suspects.
“All I want is justice for my husband,” Abigail said, according to the Post. “If I get justice, it’s not going to bring him back, but at least I’ll get some closure that those who did it have been arrested.”
Spyros Drakos, a fellow cab driver, described Gyimah as a “hero.”
“This gentleman drove his cab; he never stopped taking passengers. This to me is a hero, like the first responders. If a doctor, a nurse, someone, a family member needed to get somewhere, he was driving the cab, and he never stopped,” Drakos said at the press conference, according to WABC-TV.
Gyimah came to the United States 18 years ago from Ghana, where he had worked as an accountant.
The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers is offering a $15,000 reward for information that leads to the capture of the suspects.
A GoFundMe page is raising money for funeral costs and to help support the family.
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[Featured image: Kutin Gyimah/Facebook]
