Hundreds gathered in spite of wind and rain to honor a 20-year-old Flushing man killed in a motorcycle crash last week.
“This was one of my best friends,” said Niaz Aziz. “He was like a brother to me.”
Kiyanoush Asif died June 12 when he crashed his 2005 Kawasaki motorcycle into an oncoming 2011 Honda Accord. The car was making a left turn at the intersection of Northern Boulevard and Murray Street, police said.
Asif accelerated and struck its rear passenger side door at around 5:30 p.m., cops said. He was pronounced dead at Flushing Hospital Medical Center. The other driver remained at the scene and no criminality is suspected, police said.
The death — caused by blunt trauma to the head, torso and extremities — was ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Nearly 200 friends remembered Asif at a June 13 vigil outside Francis Lewis High School, where he graduated in 2011.
Blustering winds and rain in 60 degree weather did not stop them from meeting that night to pay their respects.
“He was a really smart kid, loved by everybody,” said Danny Salik, 20. “He was always smiling, always happy. There was nothing bad about this guy.”
Asif was a rising junior studying biology at Hunter College. He had volunteered at Flushing Hospital, friends and family said, and was an Army Junior ROTC cadet at Francis Lewis. He also had a passion for rapping.
“He was not my grandchild. He was my heart,” said Asif’s grandmother, Talat Noori. “God gave us a rose, but he was just for us to have temporarily. We still say thank you for every second, every minute of it.”
Monika Friend said many former classmates came to share tales of her cousin, who kept his personal life private.
One told the family Asif had once spent three periods in high school consoling an upset stranger.
“We felt proud of him,” said Friend, 31. “That was our boy.”
Asif bought his motorcycle about two weeks ago, though his parents begged him not to, his family and friends said.
“He was strong and brave and humble,” said Aziz, 20. “He was one of the realest people I knew.”
Aziz, a close friend for more than 12 years, said he got a cryptic call from the hospital through Asif’s cell phone on the day of the crash.
“They said they couldn’t tell me what was wrong but needed me to go there,” he recalled. “They said he wasn’t feeling well.”
He soon found out the news through Asif’s family.
“I lost a part of me,” he said, adding that he returns to the site of the crash often.
“These are the hardest days of my life,” Aziz continued. “We’re still over here hurting. I can’t even think straight. I can’t believe it.”
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