“The body was spinning in the air,” says witness who saw cyclist being run over in São Paulo

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Cyclist Rafael Tofoli, 45, was run over Sunday (18) while cycling with friends on a street in São Paulo. It was the last recording found before Tofoli’s death after having been run over that morning.

A video taken with a cellphone camera shows cyclist Rafael Galvão Tofoli smiling as he pedaled with a group of fellow cyclists in the right lane of Marginal Pinheiros in São Paulo at about 7 AM on Sunday (July 18).

It was almost 9 AM when a car hit the 45-year-old banker on the shoulder of the Rodovia dos Imigrantes at kilometer 13 in São Paulo. He led a platoon of 26 people cycling from Osasco, in the metropolitan region, to the Capivari Dam, south of the capital.

A newspaper spoke to a witness who claims to have seen the exact moment of the accident. The witness said he was driving in the left lane and talking to his wife in the passenger seat when he saw a vehicle hit Tofoli.

“The driver hit him from behind. It was a horrific scene, I saw his body spinning in the air; it was terrible. Of all the cyclists, he was the one furthest to the left of the road, but still on the shoulder,” he said.

The witness interviewed by the report also said he shared the vehicle’s license plate number that killed Tofoli with police officers.

The driver, Hedernir de Souza Costa, 23, was subsequently found and arrested by police. A test conducted hours later confirmed he was driving drunk. He was in the vehicle with three other people and fled without offering assistance to the victim. The driver has been in custody at the Pinheiros III Provisional Detention Center (CDP) since July 19.

According to Detran-SP, 178 cyclists died in São Paulo traffic between January and June of this year, a 19% decrease compared to the same period in 2020, of which 36.3% died on highways in the first half of 2021.

Rafael Tofoli’s cause of death was polytrauma, meaning he suffered multiple injuries after being run over, the report said.

On Tuesday (20), Tofoli’s widow, Edliene Maria da Rocha, 35, participated in a protest against his death that gathered more than 100 cyclists at Praça Silvio Romero in São Paulo’s East Zone.