A decision is expected Friday in the trial against an NYPD sergeant accused of killing a man by throwing a cooler at his head during an attempted drug bust.<\/p>\n
The New York attorney general\u2019s office accused Erik Duran of using excessive force in an attempt to salvage a botched arrest when he threw a cooler at Eric Duprey in August 2023. Duran\u2019s defense attorney argued the sergeant made a split-second decision to protect himself and others.<\/p>\n
Bronx Justice Guy Mitchell will determine whether Duran is guilty \u2014 not a jury.<\/p>\n
Duran is the first NYPD officer to stand trial for killing someone while on duty since New York adopted a law that requires the attorney general\u2019s office to investigate killings by law enforcement.<\/p>\n
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. If convicted of the most serious charge, he faces up to 25 years in prison, according to the attorney general\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Duran and other Bronx narcotics officers were working undercover on Aug. 23, 2023 to arrest drug dealers at several locations around the borough, Attorney General\u2019s Investigative Counsel Angel Chiohh said during opening statements. As officers tried to stop Duprey on Aqueduct Avenue, she said, he fled on a motorbike.<\/p>\n
At that point, Chiohh said, Duran was \u201cflustered\u201d and eager to arrest Duprey. The sergeant picked up a cooler filled with drinks and hurled it at Duprey, knocking him off his scooter and onto the pavement, where he cracked open his head and died almost instantly, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant had no right to use deadly physical force to stop and arrest Mr. Duprey,\u201d Chiohh said at trial. \u201cHe was not an imminent threat and should be alive today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duran\u2019s defense attorney Andrew Quinn argued at trial that the sergeant thought Duprey was going to drive his motorbike into officers or members of the public, \u201ccausing carnage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t teach officers to throw coolers, but when that is the only way to save a life, that is what they should do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decision is expected Friday in the trial against an NYPD sergeant accused of killing a man by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-125530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}