Police believe East was on foot at the time of the suspected hit-and-run.
“I’m broken,” East’s mother said in a separate statement to 7 News. “I got up … today and stood on the side of the road to try to understand how they couldn’t have seen him. I just need you to help the police find that car.”
East studied at the University of Otago in New Zealand and received first-class honours, before going on to complete a Master of Laws at Harvard Law School in the US.
Justice William Young, who worked closely with East in New Zealand for about three years, said he was hard-working, insightful, and empathetic.
East worked as Young’s clerk in New Zealand’s Supreme Court, and as adviser to a royal commission chaired by Young that examined the March 2019 terrorist attacks in Christchurch.
“After the royal commission wound up, Mitch worked at Meredith Connell and then studied, with great success, at Harvard University, obtaining an LLM and Deans’ Scholar Prizes in two of his subjects. These prizes were for being top of two extremely competitive classes,” Young said.
“As this indicates, Mitch was seriously intelligent. He was also hard-working, insightful, and empathetic. He was a remarkable man with the most extraordinary, infectious, and often self-deprecating sense of humour.
“He was huge fun to work with – an all-round great guy. Mitch’s death in Sydney is a shocking tragedy, particularly for his parents and his partner and a terrible waste of a life that held so much promise.”
A GoFundMe page was set up to relieve some of the financial pressures and stress for East’s family and had received over A$87,000 in under 24 hours.
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“He was known and will always be remembered for his hilarious yet kind nature and his incredible ability to befriend everyone he met,” the page said.
“At 28 years of age, Mitch’s time was far from up and he had so much life left and love to give.”
Police on Monday established a strike force to investigate the unidentified driver and released CCTV footage of a white SUV to the public as a renewed appeal for information.
Anyone with information about this incident, or who may have dashcam or CCTV vision, is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.