Friends are demanding justice and cycling advocates are calling for safety improvements after a beloved disc jockey was killed in a hit-and-run crash while riding his bike home from work early Saturday morning in Overbrook.
Police said the driver of a red SUV, possibly a Jeep Cherokee, was trailing the cyclist as both headed west on Lancaster Avenue approaching N. 56th Street at around 3:45 a.m. Dec. 20. June Rodriguez, 54, began to turn left onto 56th when the vehicle struck him, according to investigators.
Medics took Rodriguez to Lankenau Medical Center, where he died of his injuries at around 4:45 a.m. that day, authorities said. The driver appeared to swerve but continued westbound on Lancaster, law enforcement officials indicated.
Rodriguez, a DJ, was heading home from a shift at a bar at the time of the crash, according to state representative and Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who identified the victim as his friend.
“June was somebody special,” Kenyatta said in a video posted to Instagram. “If you were in the Philadelphia music or bar scene, you knew June. And he wasn’t just a good DJ, though he was.
“June knew how to lighten every room he walked into. He treated people with a kindness that we could only hope to see matched around this world and somebody cruelly left him to die on the side of the road.”
Rodriguez had a longtime residency at Bob and Barbara’s Lounge in Center City. The bar, in a social media post, said “music radiated through every part of his life and he created an expansive and diverse community through his art.”
A GoFundMe organized to help Rodriguez’s family cover funeral costs had raised more than $13,000, as of Monday afternoon.
Just hours before the crash, at around 9 p.m. Friday, Sara Bidos Taliaferro, 63, was struck and killed by a driver who fled the scene at Wyoming and Whitaker avenues in Juniata, police said. She was walking in the crosswalk, and the person behind the wheel briefly looked at the her before opting to drive away, according to the PPD.
Investigators later recovered the car believed to have been involved in the collision in nearby Feltonville.
No arrests have been reported in connection with either hit-and-run. Anyone with information is asked to call or text the police tip line at 215-686-TIPS (8477).
“June’s family and those of us who loved him, we deserve justice,” Kenyatta said in the Instagram clip. “We want justice for June, and we want safety for every single person who is out biking, driving, walking in our city.”
Rodriguez is the seventh cyclist killed this year, up from three in 2024, according to Philly Bike Action, an advocacy group.
The organization noted that a pedestrian – 77-year-old Dorothea Cathell – died in a hit-and-run crash in September two blocks away, at 54th Street and Lancaster Avenue. A suspect turned himself in days later and was charged.
Philly Bike Action asserts that Lancaster’s painted bike lane does not offer enough protection for riders, and the group says elected leaders and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation needs to do more to address safety on the state route.
“Despite promises from Philadelphia leadership, cyclists are no safer than they were last year,” PBA added, in a statement. “A doubling in the number of deaths is proof that the time for action was yesterday.”
