Leighton Brown was struck around 3:24 p.m. At the NYCHA Cypress Hills Houses near Euclid and Dumont avenues in East New York, according to police. Footage from Citizen showed the scene as the storm's winds battered the area.
Mayor Mamdani addressed Brown's death in a social media statement Saturday night. "Tonight, we are mourning the loss of one of our own after NYCHA employee, Leighton Brown, died," Mamdani said. "My thoughts are with his entire family as they deal with this unimaginable loss. May he rest in peace, and may his service to our city never be forgotten."
Brown worked for the agency that runs public housing across the city, and his loss reaches beyond his own family into a workplace and a neighborhood that relied on him. Mayors rarely single out one city worker's death by name in a public statement. Mamdani did just that within hours of the storm.