This is so sad...and it happened 1 block from my office yesterday morning - 4 minutes (roughly) after I left this intersection (which is where my bus drops me off). This is so sad...when I went to the bus stop at 5pm, I noticed a small memorial on my side of the street with some flowers but no sign. I immediately knew something had happened. 5 minutes later, a girl (probably 14 at the most) walked up the street, looked at the flowers and took them! As she passed me I said that I thought they were there for a reason...she asked why. I told her I didn't know but that it looked like some sort of memorial and that people leave flowers at memorials for a reason and she should put them back. She said they had been there for four hours already and they were going to die anyway, so why shouldn't she take them? I tried to get her to understand, but being a teenager, she wasn't listening to what this "old" lady was telling her...

Anyway, here's the article on the accident...so heartbreaking for his family.

Bike rider killed in Ballard

Friends, colleagues mourn UW scientist

By BRAD WONG
P-I REPORTER

Kevin Black, a molecular neurobiologist, was such an avid bicyclist that he pedaled from Seattle to California for his high school reunion.

Colleagues at the University of Washington recalled the 39-year-old father of two girls as a man who excelled at his work, got along with others and had a car but never used it.

Black died Wednesday after he was involved in a morning accident with a Ford van in Ballard.


	Kevin Black

"Everybody loved him. He was the glue of my lab," said UW professor William Zagotta, his supervisor for 15 years.

Traffic investigators are continuing to piece together exactly what happened near Northwest 64th Street and 24th Avenue Northwest, Seattle Police Detective Mark Jamieson said.

Calls started flooding 911 dispatchers around 9 a.m. to report the accident. Black was riding south on 24th Avenue Northwest, and the van, which was traveling in the same direction, had moved into the two-way left turn lane, Jamieson said.

Black was on the van's left side, and possibly tried to pass it, when the driver turned, Jamieson said. He hit the pavement.

Laurel Whitley, who lives near the intersection, spotted Black in traffic and later heard his screams.

"I'll probably never forget that," she said. "It was an accident. It happened so fast."

Immediately after the van hit him, people rushed to help. A person administered CPR and a nurse stopped to help, employees at the nearby tavern The Viking said.

The female driver did not appear to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Jamieson said. She cooperated with the investigation.

Tavern employees said she was trying to make a turn to stop at The Viking and check on its refrigerators for regular maintenance.

Witnesses said Seattle firefighters and police officers arrived within minutes of the accident. Medics rushed Black to Harborview Medical Center.

By about 1 p.m., his friends had placed two long-stem red roses against a pole and put up a handwritten sign that said: "In Loving Memory Kevin Black."

A Harborview spokeswoman confirmed his death and identified him. At the UW's Department of Physiology and Biophysics, word traveled fast about the accident.

Black, a native of Southern California, was a specialist with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and based at the UW. He moved to Seattle in 1993.

He was researching molecules that produce electrical signaling in the brain, Zagotta said. The two had co-written four research papers and were writing two more.

"He was, No. 1, a great dad. He was an excellent scientist," colleague Legay Sheridan said. "This was his first job out of college."

By 5:30 p.m., about a half-dozen people, including bicyclists, gathered near the intersection in Ballard to remember Black. They left flowers and lit candles for him.

Many, such as Seattle bicyclist Steve Brown, did not know him.

"I feel connected to the guy. I rode through the intersection 10 minutes before the accident," Brown, 38, said. "I just wanted to pay my respects to him."

In life, bicycling filled Black's heart. The Web site for the Alki Rubicon Racing Team lists him as a member, noting his long commutes and that his two daughters would be future racers.

After he finished that trek to California for his high school reunion, he admitted that it was more difficult than he expected, Sheridan said.

But friends in Seattle, she added, cheered for him along the way -- by cell phone and e-mail.