When Reinaldo Rodriguez retired from the NYPD his father was relieved his son made it through his career unharmed.
But just months after turning in his badge, Rodriguez and his girlfriend were killed in a Brooklyn crash riding a new 2025 Harley-Davidson he bought as a retirement gift to himself.
“Every time a cop would get shot in the area I would always check the news — to make sure that it wasn’t my son,” Rodriguez’s heartbroken 65-year-old father, also named Reinaldo, told the Daily News. “I always was afraid.”
The recently retired officer and his girlfriend died after he crashed into the rear passenger side of a Mercedes-Benz SUV whose driver was making a left turn off Atlantic Ave. onto Elton St. in Cypress Hills, police said.
The impact threw Rodriguez and Mirella Vega, both 42, from the bike about 8:10 p.m. Sept. 1.
Rodriguez died at the scene. Vega was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital by medics but died a short time later.
“Only a mother and a father know what losing a son is,” the elder Rodriguez said. “He was full of life.”
“Every time my friends call me, they all cry. Everybody’s crying around me. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he added. “I might be strong now but that goes in bursts. I hold and then I just let go.”
Rodriguez joined the NYPD in 2004 and retired in March from Brooklyn’s 77th Precinct.
He was just blocks away from his home in East New York when he crashed while Vega lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
After his retirement, the younger Rodriguez got the Harley to replace a speedier Japanese model, his father said.
“I was always afraid of the bike,” the father said. “When you’re on a motorcycle, you’re just decreasing your chances of survival.”
His son loved to travel, especially to Japan.
“He got his pension. He went to school for electricity to become an electrician,” the father said. “That was for after retiring, that’s what he was gonna do. Like me, I’m a handyman. He picked it up. And his cousin’s an electrician.”
The 66-year-old SUV driver stayed at the scene. He was taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was in stable condition. No charges have been filed against him as cops continue to investigate the crash.
The older Rodriguez had been celebrating the Labor Day holiday at a cookout in West New York, N.J., when his sister called with the crushing news.
“She didn’t want to tell me because I was driving. She didn’t want to give me the news,” he added. “She said, ‘You got to go to the hospital.’”
“(But) there was no hospital,” he added, after learning his son died at the scene. “She was lying to me. She did not want to tell me until I got there.”
As they prepare for Rodriguez’s funeral service this week, the dad can’t bear driving past the corner where the horrific crash occurred.
“I don’t want to go by there,” he said. “I don’t even want to go up that street. I just make a right and don’t look that way.”
A GoFundMe to support the Rodriguez family and cover funeral expenses has raised over $20,000. A GoFundMe for Vega’s family has nearly matched that.
GoFundMe
Retired NYPD Officer Reinaldo Rodriguez (pictured) and his girlfriend, Mirella Vega, died in a motorcycle crash on Sept. 1. (GoFundMe)
The elder Rodriguez said his son was always a great kid.
“When I used to go to parent school night, the teacher would be waiting for me, to shake my hand, to say, ‘What a great job you did with Reinaldo,’” the father said.
And his son passed it on, becoming a devoted dad to a son who is now 10
“He was a great father,” the older Rodriguez said. “That kid was his life.”
The victim’s mother, Diane Rodriguez, 68, agrees.
“He was looking forward to spending more time with his son,” she said. “Everything was for him. That was his world.”
And his son’s girlfriend was “an amazing mother,” the father added.
“You know where they met? School,” the father said of the couple. “Years ago and they finally ended up together. High school. He didn’t marry her, he married another girl, got divorced and then now they went and found each other. They were friends, that’s why they connected so much.”
Vega worked as a medical assistant and had three children, the oldest 22.
“Everybody’s in shock,” her eldest daughter, who wished not to be named, told The News. “She was involved in everyone’s lives … She was the most selfless person you will ever meet. She lit up a room when she came in. She took care of everyone around her. She put others before herself.”
Rodriguez was the second cop within a week to die in a motorcycle crash in the city.
On Aug. 27, NYPD Officer Jay Pena, 30, was killed riding home from his job in the 84th Precinct in a hit-and-run crash with a box truck driver on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Cobble Hill.
Cops arrested Carlos Almanzar Toribio the same day and he was charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, operating an unregistered vehicle and driving without a license plate. A Brooklyn judge ordered him held on $300,000 bond.
Rodriguez’ mother said her 23 years working in school safety inspired her son, who she called by his nickname “Rey,” to become a police officer.
“My son was a humble servant, always willing to help people,” she said. “He was very outgoing, always there for whoever needed a hand. I call him my superhero. My son was a superhero. Rey was unstoppable.”
