A month after 26-year-old tow truck driver Alex Ramos was killed while loading a car onto his flatbed in Bloomfield, his family says they are still waiting for an arrest, even though police say the driver who struck him never left the scene. Ramos's father, Jonathan Ramos, says the delay has made grief even harder to bear.
Ramos was working for Governor's Towing on September 8 when he was struck just after 7:30 p.m. in the 300 block of Tunxis Avenue while loading a teal Kia SUV, according to Daily Voice. Bloomfield Police Captain James Salvatore said Ramos suffered severe head trauma and died at the scene after a vehicle clipped the flatbed ramp of his tow truck and flipped onto its roof, prompting a crash reconstruction by the North Central Municipal Accident Reconstruction Team. As WFSB reports, the driver who struck Ramos stayed at the scene, and police have not yet made an arrest.
A Father's Plea for Justice
Jonathan Ramos told WFSB that his family needs justice and that he misses his son, saying each day grows harder knowing the person who killed him remains free. He described Alex as someone who was always laughing, smiling, and wanting to help people. Alex Ramos was a husband and father of two young children, ages 1 and 4.
Police told WFSB they have a warrant written up and are working with the prosecutor to fine-tune its language, though it has not yet been signed. Christine Ely, speaking to the station, said authorities know who caused the crash and that the car flipped upside down in the collision. She argued that tow truck drivers function as first responders and deserve the same respect and urgency in securing arrests that other emergency personnel receive.
Why Warrants Take Weeks to Finalize
The gap between a fatal roadside crash and formal charges is not unusual in Connecticut. Crash reconstruction teams like the one assigned to Ramos's case typically need several weeks to analyze vehicle mechanics, impact angles, and speeds before prosecutors can finalize warrant language. Under Connecticut General Statutes § 14-283b, drivers approaching a stationary tow or emergency vehicle must slow down and move over, and a violation that causes an operator's death carries a statutory fine of up to $20,000, according to Justia Law. Proving a higher charge, such as manslaughter or reckless driving, requires establishing extreme indifference or criminal negligence, which is part of why reconstruction findings carry so much weight before any warrant is signed.
State lawmakers have pushed to toughen those penalties. During the 2025 legislative session, Senate Bill 1388 sought to reclassify fatal Move Over violations as first-degree manslaughter, a Class B felony carrying up to 20 years in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of one year, according to FastDemocracy. Tow industry advocates have argued that existing infraction-level penalties fail to deter negligent driving.
Community Mourning and Industry Pressure
On September 15, more than 100 tow trucks and emergency vehicles gathered at Rentschler Field in East Hartford for a memorial procession honoring Ramos, while a community fundraiser raised thousands of dollars for his wife and two young children. Per FOX61, Ramos was the third tow truck operator killed on Connecticut roads over a six-year span, a toll that has pushed industry advocates to press for a greater law enforcement presence on high-risk roadside calls. Towing representatives have also urged state police to issue more citations under the Move Over law.
Ramos's death also fits into a wider pattern of roadside worker fatalities in Connecticut, including CTDOT maintainer Elvin Hernandez, killed on I-95 last month, and CTDOT worker Andrew DiDomenico, killed on I-91 in June 2024, as Hoodline has previously reported. Both DOT fatalities prompted union demands for stricter driver accountability. Nationally, federal data from the U.S. Fire Administration identifies vehicle struck-by incidents as the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths among first responders and roadside crews, pointing to driver distraction and speed as key causes of these collisions.
New Work-Zone Law Arrives Too Late for This Case
Effective October 1, a newly enacted Connecticut statute reclassifies distracted driving in active highway work zones as criminal reckless driving, expanding prosecutors' tools in future roadside crashes. The law took effect three weeks after the Bloomfield crash that killed Ramos, meaning it does not apply retroactively to his case. Connecticut recorded 140 traffic fatalities through mid-August this year, a figure virtually unchanged from the 139 recorded over the same period in 2025, according to tracking by the UConn Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center.
For now, Ramos's family is left waiting as police and prosecutors finalize the warrant language that will determine what charges, if any, the driver ultimately faces. Jonathan Ramos's message to WFSB was simple: his family needs justice, and every day without an arrest adds to the weight of losing his son.
