Nicholas Cleves, 23, and Darren Drake, 32, who both run in New York, were recalled as thriving young men and praised for their kindness
The two young Americans who died alongside six tourists in the terrorist attack in New York on Tuesday have been praised as smart, promising young men who were clearly flourishing and in the prime of their lives.
The native New Yorker Nicholas Cleves was just 23 and a talented software engineer who was remembered as a “sweetheart” by a local storekeeper. Darren Drake was 32, research projects director for the credit ratings agency Moody’s who commuted into the city daily from New Jersey and was described by his father as “most innocent”.
The two men were killed when a human drove a rented truck at high speed for almost a mile down the scenic cycle path that runs along the west side of Manhattan. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State late on Thursday.
Sayfullo Saipov, 29, who was shot and wounded by a police officer after he crashed the truck into a school bus, has been charged with federal terrorism crimes.
Eight people died in the attack on Tuesday afternoon, including a group of five men visiting from Argentina as part of local schools reunion journey and a young mom on vacation from Belgium.
A dozen people were injured as the truck mowed down cyclists and pedestrians in a four-minute rampage. The worst trauma befall a woman who has had to have both legs amputated, a New York police detective told the Guardian, asking that his name not be used as he was not authorized to discuss details of the incident publicly.” They were crushed beyond mend. The traumata are awful ,” the detective told.
Darren Drake was cycling on the track on a rented bicycle, close to his office in lower Manhattan, when Saipov struck. His father now plans to give his son’s bicycle, and his own, to charity.
Drake traveled by train into New York daily from his home in New Milford, New Jersey, where he lived with his parents, James and Barbara, and was an merely child. They were forced to retrace his journey on Wednesday morning, traveling into New York by car to identify their son’s body at the morgue.
” When normal people took a coffee break, he took a motorcycle breach, and that’s when it happened ,” James Drake told NBC. He was maintaining fit after losing 100 lb following weight-loss surgery, his father said.
He described Darren as a bookworm, who especially liked listening to audio books. When he was killed he was listening to 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles Mann. He was also studying for a second “masters degree”. He graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
” Life was perfect for him. He was the most innocent, delicate infant. He wouldn’t swat a fly ,” his father said.
The family lives only a few blocks from where Darren went to school and later was vice-president of the school board and had aspirations to run for the city council. Neighbours who had known him since he was a baby were in tears in the close-knit community on Wednesday.
Nicholas Cleves was an enthusiastic cyclist and died very close to his home. He lived with his mother in the West Village and had attended the private-sector partner schools the Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin school, collectively known as LREI, in the area.
Phil Kassen, a director of LREI, said in a statement that he recollected Nicholas Cleves as having” the biggest smile” and said he was ” the most decent, kindest human being and just the nicest person to have around “. His mothers, Monica and Richard, were very closely involved with the school when Nicholas was there, Kassen said.
Cleves graduated in 2016 from Skidmore College, a liberal arts school in Saratoga Springs, in upstate New York, where his mother was an alumna, and Nicholas was known as a very smart student, majoring in computer science. He minored in physics and also analyzed Italian and ran at the IT help desk and as an astronomy tutor, a statement from the college said.
One of his computer science instructors, the associate professor Michael Eckmann, remembered him for his” highly positive posture “.
” He was one of the most cheerful and friendly students we’ve had in government departments ,” he said in a statement.
Cleves was working in New York as a software engineer and web decorator. His aunt, Nicole Missio, said he was an merely child and that the family was ” completely destroyed” by his sudden death, according to the New York Daily News.
Read more: www.theguardian.com