Biker dies in plunge off bridge

Follow up to the article “Motorcycle Accident on Eastern Parkway” and the one from last year where a biker died .

A 38-year-old motorcyclist died last night when he rammed the back of a livery cab and plunged off the Williamsburg Bridge into the East River, police said.

NYPD Aviation and Harbor units found Leonard Beckett’s body after searching the swirling, murky water toward the Manhattan side of the bridge for about 45 minutes.

Witnesses told cops that Beckett, a father of seven from St. Albans, Queens, was coming from Brooklyn with about a half-dozen members of his motorcycle club, the Southside Renegades, about 10:20 p.m. when the accident occurred.

More pictures in the Extended Article

They said the bikers had traveled about two-thirds of the way across the span on their recreational ride when Beckett’s red chopper hit the cab.

They said he flew over a 3-foot concrete barrier and plunged into the water more than 100 feet below.

Police said it was too soon to tell if he was killed by the collision or the fall from the bridge.

It was unclear why Beckett hit the cab. The livery driver, who had no passengers, was unharmed.

Duran Lawrence, 43, Beckett’s next-door neighbor for the past eight years, said the victim’s wife, Veronica, and children “were just falling apart.”

He described Beckett, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound gentle giant, as “just a nice, good guy who was the entertainer of the neighborhood.”

He said Beckett had people to his home throughout the year for barbecues “because that’s the kind of person he was.”

As cops searched for Beckett’s body, then found and examined it, some of the Renegades sat and watched dejectedly near the water at South Second St. and Kent Ave. in Williamsburg, mourning their loss.