Sergeant Erik Duran in court, memorial for Eric Duprey, and the cooler from the incident (WNBC screenshots)
A 37-year-old sergeant in the New York City Police Department has been indicted on a slew of felonies for allegedly killing a 30-year-old suspected drug dealer, throwing a cooler at the man as he was fleeing on a motorized scooter, causing him to crash and strike his head on the curb. Erik Duran stands charged with one count each of second-degree manslaughter, first and second-degree assault, and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Eric Duprey last summer, authorities announced.
Duran on Tuesday appeared in State Supreme Court before Justice George Villegas for his arraignment where his bail was set at $150,000 bond or partially secured bond, with $150,000 cash alternative, according to a news release from the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Duran pleaded not guilty to all of the charges levied against him.
Authorities allege that on Aug. 23, 2023, Duran was acting in an undercover capacity with the NYPD’s Narcotics Borough Bronx (NBBX) Tactical Response Unit when he “forcefully threw a cooler at Eric Duprey as he was driving a motorized scooter, causing Mr. Duprey’s death.”
The incident took place when members of the NBBX team on Aug. 23, 2023, arrived on Aqueduct Avenue between West 190th and 192nd Streets in the Bronx to conduct a “buy-and-bust” operation in which undercover officers purchase drugs, the release states. It was the fourth such operation conducted in the area by that team.
“During the operation, NBBX team members encountered Mr. Duprey and attempted to arrest him, at which point he got on a motorized scooter to flee,” prosecutors wrote. “As Mr. Duprey rode the scooter toward West 190th Street, Sgt. Duran grabbed a civilian’s cooler off of a nearby table and threw it at Mr. Duprey, striking him in the head and causing him to lose control of the scooter. Mr. Duprey then sideswiped a tree before he was thrown from the scooter and hit his head on the curb, landing under a parked vehicle.”
Duprey, a father of two, was traveling at about 40 mph when he was struck by the cooler, New York NBC affiliate WNBC reported. He was pronounced dead on the scene. A subsequent autopsy determined that his manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Following the incident, Duran was suspended and later placed on modified duty.
During Tuesday’s arraignment, Duran’s attorney said that Duprey’s own choices were the cause of his death.
“Eric Duprey is dead because of Eric Duprey’s actions,” he said in courtroom footage broadcast by New York ABC affiliate WABC. “It’s unequivocally clear watching the video that Eric Duprey was driving a motorcycle on the sidewalk of a crowded street in the Bronx with children playing soccer on the grass right next to him and he drove it directly at (Duran).”
Vincent Vallelong, the president of the Sergeants’ Benevolent Association, issued a scathing statement against New York Attorney General Letitia James on Tuesday.
“The demonization of Sgt. Duran and the criminalization of his actions once again proves the old adage that overzealous prosecutors with a political agenda can indict a ham sandwich if inclined to do so,” he said in a statement to the New York Post. “Sgt. Duran made a split-second decision that was predicated solely on his concern for the safety of others. Now he has become the latest victim of a legal system that treats honest hard-working cops as criminals and criminals as victims.”
Black Lives Matter of Greater New York member Hawk Newsome provided a different perspective in a statement to WABC.
“You’re trained to make a split second decisions, police officers are trying to make split-second decisions, show me somewhere, anywhere in the country where in training they are taught to pick up coolers and throw them at people accused of a crime,” he told the station.
Duran is scheduled to appear in court again on April 18.
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