2023 death of Eric Duprey<\/a>. The former sergeant said he was trying to protect other officers from the approaching scooter.\n <\/p>\n\n \u201cI took this job to save lives. I felt terrible once I saw Eric Duprey crash,\u201d Duran told the court Thursday, saying he \u201cdid everything he could\u201d to attend to the man\u2019s injuries.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI never wanted this to happen,\u201d he added, addressing Duprey\u2019s family directly in Spanish that a court interpreter translated.\n <\/p>\n
\n Duprey\u2019s mother, Gretchen Soto, wept as the ex-officer spoke. She had told the court a half hour earlier: \u201cThere are no words to express what I feel.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Judge Guy Mitchell said he did not accept the ex-sergeant\u2019s defense that his actions were justified.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is the court\u2019s belief that the defendant, Sgt. Duran, was upset that Mr. Duprey was getting away\u201d and reacted by hurling the cooler, Mitchell said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The case has animated police on one hand and accountability activists on the other. Duran\u2019s union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, says thousands of officers have signed an online petition calling for him to be spared prison.\n <\/p>\n
\n Officers in New York Police Department jackets streamed down a Bronx courthouse hallway ahead of the sentencing Thursday, while a couple of dozen protesters demonstrated outside to demand justice for Duprey.\n <\/p>\n
\n Prosecutors with state Attorney General Letitia James\u2019 office sought a three-to-nine-year prison sentence for Duran, saying he recklessly caused Duprey\u2019s death.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe did that while on duty,\u201d then attempted to cover up his actions, prosecutor Joseph Bianco told the court.\n <\/p>\n
\n Duran and his lawyers had not yet had their chance to speak.\n <\/p>\n
\n Duran was part of a narcotics policing group that conducted a \u201cbuy-and-bust\u201d operation in the Bronx on August 23, 2023. Police said Duprey sold drugs to an undercover officer, then tried to flee on a scooter.\n <\/p>\n
\n Surveillance video showed Duprey driving the motorized scooter on a sidewalk toward a group of people. As he approached, the then-sergeant \u2014 who wasn\u2019t in uniform \u2014 picked up a bystander\u2019s cooler and threw it.\n <\/p>\n
\n 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\u2019t wearing a helmet. He sustained fatal head injuries and died almost instantly, according to prosecutors.\n <\/p>\n
\n They argued Duran had enough time to warn others to move but instead hurled the cooler because he was angry.\n <\/p>\n
\n Duran, however, testified at his trial that he made a split-second decision to keep other officers safe from the scooter speeding toward them.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe was gonna crash into us,\u201d Duran said then, adding, \u201cAll I had time for was to try again to stop or to try to get him to change directions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Duran opted to have Mitchell, not a jury, decide the case.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sergeants Benevolent Association President Vincent Vallelong has said the conviction sent \u201ca terrible message to hard-working cops\u201d about the costs of defending themselves and fellow officers.\n <\/p>\n
\n Duran was an NYPD officer for 13 years before he was suspended after the crash. He was dismissed from the force after his conviction this past February.\n <\/p>\n
\n Duprey worked as a delivery driver and had three young children. His mother, Gretchen Soto, who said she was on a video call with him right before he died, has disputed the police claims that he sold drugs and fled from officers.\n <\/p>\n
\n She told the judge Thursday her son \u201cis not just a name, not just one more case.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is an unjust incident,\u201d Soto said through a Spanish interpreter. \u201cAs a mother, I have to miss him now every day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New YorkAP\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 A former New York City police sergeant was sentenced Thursday to three to nine years in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-193509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-headlines","10":"tag-new-york-news","11":"tag-new-york-state","12":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193509","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=193509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}