By Cynthia Koons
It was the fault of the police, they said, for pursuing Pomar. Pomar was riding his 18-inch-tall motorcycle when police attempted to stop him for driving an unregistered mini-bike without a helmet, the authorities said.Within hours of his death, friends gathered around the puddle where Pomar, a Kew Gardens Hills resident who was weeks away from earning his credentials as a mechanic, died after being thrown from his bike and killed. Police officers from the 107th Precinct were following Pomar early last Thursday when he was believed to have hit a pothole on 150th Street and flown off his bike into another large pothole containing a puddle about 60 feet away. He was pronounced dead at the scene, cops said. His friends contend officers were following Pomar, who was on 150th Street between 78th Road and 78th Avenue, because he had a prior arrest record.At the 107th Precinct, police said they would not comment on the accident. It was still under investigation as of Tuesday.”The precinct knew him. They knew his first and last name,” said Ali Bhatti, 20, a friend of Pomar.”This kid was no angel, but he was trying to straighten out his life,” said Joel Ingegno, another friend. “He shouldn't have gone out like this.” Pomar, who was on probation at the time of the accident, was respected on the blocks of his tight-knit Kew Gardens Hills community for being a mechanic who was always willing to fix a friend's car.”If you needed a helping hand, he was there to help you. It's a shame for him to go out like this,” said Steve Alexandre, a neighborhood friend.Pomar had just bought the bike on Sunday, friends said, and was driving it because his automobile license was suspended. No one would say what he had been arrested for in the past.About 30 people gathered around the puddle where a makeshift memorial to Pomar had been built. Below Pomar's picture lay Budweiser cans, cigarettes and an empty Absolut bottle that was used for a toast in his honor. The tobacco and alcohol were gifts that friends said Pomar would appreciate in the afterlife.No police tape was around the accident scene as of noon last Thursday afternoon Ñ a sign friends said was indicative of the cops' involvement in the accident.”We're told the Fire Department came down to hose it all,” Ingegno said. “This isn't taped off. … This is not going to go very quietly.”Pomar's friends were so adamant that the 19-year-old could not have had the accident without the cops having hit his mini-motorcycle that they paid a passerby to lend his pocket bike for a demonstration of the ride down 150th Street.Although it was bumpy, Chris Sanchez drove down the back alley through both the potholes to prove that Pomar would not have lost control of his bike without provocation from the police car behind him. Sanchez also said he videotaped the police and firefighters cleaning the scene, but he would not allow anyone to view the tape last Thursday.Mini-bikes, which are illegal to drive in public, do not travel faster than 30 miles per hour, the mourners maintained. The bikes resemble miniature motorcycles and cost about $300. Onlookers said the pocket bikes, as they are also called, can be purchased at stores in Jamaica, Flushing and Brooklyn.Pomar's friends stayed at the scene last Thursday afternoon to talk with the press, but as the day wore on they started to wander away.A man walking past the scene with a lawn mower, Kevin Brown, stopped and said: “He was the nicest kid you ever wanted to know … never had trouble with nobody.”Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.
