I feel so badly for that poor man and his family.
But to add a comment to general conversation, it's not illegal everywhere to ride sidewalks.
At any rate, I'm always going to ride where it's safest for me to be at that moment, without endangering or harrassing anyone else. If that means getting a ticket somewhere, sometime, for riding where I shouldn't, so be it. I can pay the ticket and live to ride another day. I'm not interested in being "dead right".