Boy buried after crash involving Odom

NEW YORK (AP):

Neighbours have buried a teenager who died when a motorcycle collided with a vehicle carrying Los Angeles Lakers player Lamar Odom and hurtled on to a New York sidewalk.

Odom, who stars in a reality TV show with his wife, Khloe Kardashian, was visiting his native Queens last week Thursday when a motorcycle tried to turn left in front of the chauffeured Cadillac Escalade sport-utility vehicle he was riding in, police said.

The motorcycle hit the front bumper of the SUV and went out of control, striking a pedestrian, 15-year-old Awsaf Alvi Islam, New York City Police Spokesman Paul Browne said Tuesday.

"It hit him from behind and he went right down head first," said Rahat Islam, a friend of the boy.

An ambulance took the boy to Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens with severe head trauma, said Atiya Butler, a spokeswoman for the hospital. He died of his injuries at about 2:30 p.m. the following day.

Under investigation

The driver of the motorcycle, 32-year-old Christian Mora of Queens, was in stable condition at the same hospital, Browne said. No one has been arrested, but the collision remains under investigation, he said.

Awsaf Alvi Islam was the son of immigrants from Bangladesh, an avid soccer player who had recently become more involved in his local mosque, Rahat Islam said.

Mourners gathered on the sidewalk in front of the mosque on Monday and bowed their heads in prayer around Islam's plain wooden casket. The consul-general of Bangladesh in New York, Shabbir Ahmad Chowdhury, also attended the service.

The collision occurred shortly after Odom had stopped at the China One Taco House at the corner of 45th Street and 48th Avenue in the Woodside neighbourhood of Queens, said Shahrath Choudhury, 12, who lives in the area. He and other children from the neighbourhood flocked around Odom's vehicle and took pictures with their cellphones, as Odom waved from the rear seat.

Odom is a seven-year veteran of the Lakers and has also played for the Los Angeles Clippers and Miami Heat.