Motorcyclist Struck & Killed By FDNY Truck In Bed-Stuy

A motorcyclist was struck and killed in Bed-Stuy yesterday by a FDNY truck responding to an emergency. 46-year-old Reginald Brown was riding westbound on Monroe Street at around 4 p.m. when the ladder truck, with its sirens on, drove through the intersection of Monroe and Marcy Avenue, striking Brown and knocking him off his motorcycle. Brown landed in front of a nearby salon, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. "He had a gash in his head. His body was contorted around the gate in front of the salon,” a witness told the Daily News. A police spokesperson says that Brown failed to yield to the fire truck at the intersection.

Brown's home was two blocks from the site of the accident, and he had just left his shift at The Doe Fund to attend a memorial for a friend who was killed on his motorcycle a year ago. “If the speed limit was 45, he would go 35,” Brown's riding partner and friend Sidest Mahado, told the Times. "We’d always have to pull over and wait for him by the exit. We’d say, ‘Come on, speed up!’ He’d just shake his head and say, ‘Uh-uh, not gonna do it.’ "

Ladder Company 111 was responding to a fire started by illegal fireworks. 17-year-old Kevin Saunders was charged with arson 2, and reckless endangerment, among other charges. According to NBC Ladder Company 111 was also involved in an accident in March when it struck a vehicle on Bedford Avenue responding to an emergency. Ten people, six of them firefighters, were injured in that incident.

The Doe Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to helping the homeless, released a statement calling Brown a "beloved staff member…for more than 10 years," noting that "Reginald kept everyone smiling as he was the master of ceremonies at annual holiday parties as well as at events held at Doe Fund facilities for the homeless he so unconditionally served." A neighbor, Robert McMickel, told the Times, "That's just the kind of guy he is; he was very helpful. He was there for you."