Family members of 7-year-old Nico Castillon have been grieving privately since the boy was struck and killed by a Ford F-450 pickup truck while riding his bicycle in a sleepy southeast Houston neighborhood on Thanksgiving Day. Neighbors, however, are looking for someone to blame and a solution to ensure such a tragedy doesn’t occur again.
Several relatives, including the organizer of a GoFundMe account that has raised more than $16,000 for funeral expenses, did not respond to repeated requests for comment Monday and Tuesday. No information about a memorial service has been released.
The silence of Nico’s parents Ashley and Tyriq Castillon can possibly be attributed to the fact that they just lost a child, but may also have something to do with the scrutiny coming from keyboard warriors looking to hold someone accountable.
Hundreds of comments on a social media post by a Houston television station offered thoughts and prayers, but many questioned whether a child should have been riding his bike unsupervised. Still others pointed a finger at the senior driver of the pickup truck, saying he was too old to be behind the wheel of such a big rig.
“This could have been prevented,” one Facebook user wrote. “RIP to the little man.”
Nico lived in the South Park neighborhood about five miles from William P. Hobby Airport. The streets are narrow and, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, they were filled with debris and overloaded trash cans. A few cracked sidewalks exist sporadically throughout the neighborhood but there are no bike lanes or unobstructed paths for cyclists on Willow Glen Drive near Herschelwood, where Nico was biking last week.
Willow Glen Drive doesn’t have sidewalks, so kids with bikes have to ride in the street. Credit: April Towery
Houston Police Department spokesman Shay Awosiyan said a 70-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was driving a Ford F-450 near 5200 Willow Glen around 11:35 a.m. on November 27.
The driver stopped at a stop sign at the intersection of Willow Glen and Herschelwood, and as he proceeded westbound, he heard “something that was being dragged under the undercarriage of his vehicle,” Awosiyan said. “He stopped and inspected his vehicle and noticed a small bicycle in the front of his vehicle. He looked back and saw a child lying in the roadway.”
“[Houston Fire Department] responded and sadly, the child was pronounced dead at the scene,” the police spokesman said. “The driver was evaluated and found not to be impaired. Right now, it’s an ongoing investigation. No charges have been filed at this time.”
Under Texas regulations it is not against the law to ride a bike on a sidewalk unless a local government has established restrictions. In Houston, cyclists are prohibited from riding on sidewalks in a business district, which Willow Glen Drive, to all appearances, is not.
Chloe Combs, who identified herself as the sister of Nico’s father Tyriq, set up a GoFundMe account to help with funeral expenses, “time away from work and the costs that come with trying to hold life together after a devastating loss.”
“Nico was riding his bike when he was suddenly and tragically struck and killed,” Combs wrote on the fundraiser webpage. “His loss has left our entire family heartbroken and in shock. His smile, his humor, and his gentle heart touched so many people in just seven short years.”
A Houston ISD spokesman said Tuesday he could not confirm whether Nico was enrolled in in a district school, saying “The district cannot provide or confirm student information.”
The area where Nico’s family lives doesn’t appear to be heavily trafficked. Most intersections have four-way stops, and it’s not uncommon for unleashed dogs to run around or children to play outside when the weather is nice. A tragedy such as the one that occurred on Thanksgiving could, however, prompt elected officials to revisit the need for infrastructure in the area, said a staffer for Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who represents the area.
Ellis has been a champion for equity: ensuring that historically underserved communities have the same amenities as wealthy neighborhoods. Current projects listed in the commissioner’s sidewalk program include upgrades to West Mount Houston, Ella Boulevard and Airline Drive.
“Although we live in a car-centric community, many people depend on safe sidewalks to help them get around. We have all experienced the frustration and even danger of broken, disconnected sidewalks that are too common in neighborhoods,” Ellis said in a statement. “Safe, wide sidewalks can help connect neighborhoods, provide pathways to opportunity, and expand access to healthy, active transportation.”
Willow Glen Drive doesn’t have sidewalks, so kids with bikes have to ride in the street. Credit: April Towery
A March 2024 study by the Rice University Institute for Public Policy found that there were 629 traffic incidents in Houston between 2018 and 2023 involving children who were walking or biking. Of those, 21 resulted in death and 159 resulted in serious injury.
Most of the incidents occurred in neighborhoods that lack safe infrastructure like sidewalks, crosswalks or protected bike lanes, according to the report.
Three hotspots were identified in the study: two in southwest Houston along the Interstate 59 and Westpark Tollway corridors and one in Sunnyside. Within those clusters, the areas particularly dangerous for children include Alief’s Beechnut Street near Wilcrest Drive; Glenmont from Renwick to Royalton in Gulfton; the Sunnyside Square Mile; and Hillcroft Avenue in Gulfton.
Houston Public Works has a program through which residents can apply for the construction of new sidewalks along streets leading to schools and near major thoroughfares, with a focus on improving accessibility for people with disabilities.
Steven David, chief strategy and operations officer for Mayor John Whitmire, acknowledged that the application process puts disorganized neighborhoods with a heavy renter population at a disadvantage.
The current sidewalk program is “reactive not proactive, meaning you’ve got to apply,” David said. “That’s the challenge. How, in an apartment complex where there isn’t an HOA, do they figure it out? It’s a very valid concern. It’s one of the concerns that the mayor holds. As of right now, we have about 2,200 road miles with no sidewalks throughout the city of Houston.”
The program does not fund sidewalk repairs because, according to city documents, property owners of the adjoining sidewalk are responsible for maintenance.
David said when Whitmire was elected in December 2023, there was no cohesive dataset to show where sidewalks are, “and that prevented us from inverting it to show where sidewalks are not.” That information is now being gathered and an announcement about a comprehensive sidewalk plan is forthcoming, possibly at the mayor’s State of the City address in February.
Developers of new subdivisions are required to build sidewalks in most cases or pay a “fee in lieu” of $12 per square foot, based on the size of the sidewalk that would have been required. The collected fees go into a fund for sidewalks to be built elsewhere in the city. Funding for sidewalks can also come from a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone or council member district funds.
The fee-in-lieu fund currently has about $2 million. The city’s sidewalk needs total at least $1.1 billion, David said.
Houston’s sidewalk fee-in-lieu became effective in March 2023. Prior to that, the city had an ordinance since the 1990s requiring sidewalks for new development, but exemptions and modifications were routinely granted.
Kevin Strickland, cofounder of Walk and Roll Houston, has been vocal in his opposition to waiving the sidewalk requirement for new development.
“We are not going to treat sidewalks as extra or inconvenient or as aesthetically not pleasing or as too expensive,” Strickland said last September. “This is a false narrative. Sidewalks are as important to our infrastructure as roads.”
David pointed out that, like it or not, the vast majority of Houston residents get around by vehicle or public transportation, and that’s been the case for many generations. There are some people, he said, who think the city shouldn’t be building sidewalks at all.
“An organization like Houston is obligated to react to demand when it comes to things like infrastructure and network,” David said. “We are required to react to what people tell us they want to use our roads for, and overwhelmingly, it’s vehicle traffic.”
“Mayor Whitmire obviously prioritizes public safety,” he added. “He balances the needs of multiple people. We can direct that a sidewalk be built but it sort of flies in the face, and I’m not going to say that I totally agree with this, of the people who have followed the process. For every person that we prioritize, we de-prioritize someone else. As of right now, the policy is that it’s an application-based program.”
Nico’s neighborhood is about a mile from Mamie Sue Bastian Elementary School, therefore making it eligible for a sidewalk application, but it was unclear at press time if there has ever been a campaign to improve infrastructure in the area.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
Related