Former NYPD officer faces sentencing in cooler throwing death

NEW YORK (AP) — A former New York City police sergeant is set to be sentenced Thursday for tossing a picnic cooler full of drinks at a fleeing suspect, who then crashed his motorized scooter and died.

The ex-officer, Erik Duran, was convicted of manslaughter in the 2023 death of Eric Duprey. The former sergeant, who said he was trying to protect other officers from the approaching scooter, faces up to 15 years in prison.

The case has animated police on one hand and accountability activists on the other. Duran’s union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, says thousands of officers have signed an online petition calling for him to be spared prison. Meanwhile, a small group of activists demonstrated outside a Bronx courthouse Tuesday to push for the maximum sentence, the Daily News reported.

Duran was part of a narcotics policing group that conducted a “buy-and-bust” operation in the Bronx on Aug. 23, 2023. Police said Duprey sold drugs to an undercover officer, then tried to flee on a scooter.

Surveillance video showed Duprey driving the motorized scooter on a sidewalk toward a group of people. As he approached, the then-sergeant — who wasn’t in uniform — picked up a bystander’s cooler and thew it.

The container full of ice, water and sodas struck Duprey. He lost control of the scooter, slammed into a tree and crashed onto the pavement.

Duprey, 30, wasn’t wearing a helmet. He sustained fatal head injuries and died almost instantaneously, according to prosecutors with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office.

They argued that Duran had enough time to warn others to move but instead hurled the cooler because he was angry.

Duran, however, testified that he made a split-second decision to keep other officers safe from the scooter speeding toward them.

“He was gonna crash into us,” Duran said in court, adding that “all I had time for was to try again to stop or to try to get him to change directions.”

He testified that he immediately tried to help Duprey after seeing the crash and the extent of the man’s injuries.

Duran opted to have a judge, not a jury, decide the case. Judge Guy Mitchell found him guilty, saying that his status as a police officer “has no bearing” on the case.

But Sergeants Benevolent Association President Vincent Vallelong has said the conviction sent “a terrible message to hard-working cops” about the costs of defending themselves and fellow officers.

Duran was a New York Police Department officer for 13 years before he was suspended after the crash. He was dismissed from the force after his conviction this past February.

Duprey worked as a delivery driver and had three young children. His mother, who said she was on a video call with him right before he died, disputed the police claims that he sold drugs and fled from officers.

A lawyer for Duprey’s family, Jon Roberts, said they are “hopeful that the court will do justice for Eric and the loss that the entire family has endured and hope that this marks the beginning of the healing process.”