A fleeing suspected drug dealer who died in the Bronx when a cop threw a cooler at him and knocked him off his scooter was no threat to anyone on the street, a state prosecutor said yesterday.
Sgt. Erik Duran’s desperate effort to subdue victim Eric Duprey was both “reckless” and “negligent,” and needlessly resulted in the death of a young father, the prosecutor, Angel Chiohh, said.
“Mr. Duprey was not a threat to life,” Chiohh told a judge presiding in Bronx Supreme Court over Duran’s trial on manslaughter, assault and criminally negligent homicide.
“No one was in danger of dying that day. No one should have died that day.”
cop cooler nyc scooter fatal crash
Obtained by Daily News Eric Duprey (pictured), a scooter-riding suspect fleeing a Bronx buy-and-bust drug sting, died Aug. 23, 2023, after an NYPD sergeant grabbed a cooler from a nearby family get-together and hurled it at the man, knocking him to the ground.
Lawyers for Duran, 38, have said the veteran cop made a split-second decision to protect lives that day when he took quick action to stop the speeding Duprey.
They claimed Duprey, 30, who worked as a delivery driver, was the reckless one, zigzagging and speeding along a crowded street and sidewalk, when undercover cops closed in to arrest him on Aug. 23, 2023.
“He had to take action,” Duran’s lawyer, Andrew Quinn, said. “Mr. Duprey never slowed down, never changed his trajectory. And it was inevitable, it was a certainty, that he was going to crash into the two detectives and their prisoner and my client. And if my client didn’t act, we most likely would have buried two detectives and a civilian.”
cop cooler nyc scooter fatal crash
Cops were running a buy-and-bust operation at Aqueduct Ave. near W. 192nd St. in Kingsbridge Heights when they nabbed the wrong guy, and Duprey took off, officials said.
Prosecutors said Duprey had eluded several officers before Duran used both hands to grab a red-and-white cooler filled with beverages and ice, and hurled it at Duprey’s head.
Duprey, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, lost control, sideswiped a tree and was thrown off the scooter, officials said. He struck his head on the curb and landed under a parked vehicle.
He died at the scene.
“Eric Duprey died that day, because he made a series of bad choices, terrible decisions,” Quinn said. “The first is that he sold drugs on the street.”
But Duprey’s family has said he wasn’t dealing drugs. They said he fled because he feared the cops since the scooter was not registered.
Duran opted for a bench trial, allowing for a judge to decide his fate rather than a jury.
He is being prosecuted by the State Attorney General’s Office, which investigates police-involved deaths.