On Wednesday, 30-year-old Eric Duprey was killed in a motorcycle crash in the Bronx. Surveillance camera footage shows Duprey riding on the sidewalk toward a group of men. One of the men picked up a cooler and hurled it at Duprey’s head. He then lost control of the bike and fell towards a tree. Duprey and the bike came to rest against the front bumper of a parked Jeep Cherokee.
Duprey was pronounced dead just minutes later. The man who threw the cooler was Erik Duran, a New York Police Department sergeant dressed in plain clothes. An eyewitness told the New York Daily News, “[Duprey] was on the bike, moving north when the cops started chasing him. Then he took a U-turn and was riding on the sidewalk. … The cop then took my cooler, which was filled with soda cans, water bottles, and hit him.”
The details leading up to the incident aren’t clear. The NYPD claims that Duprey was fleeing arrest after he sold drugs to an undercover officer a block away from the crash scene. However, the department won’t specify crucial details about the alleged sale in the buy-and-bust sting, like what drug was sold and for how much money.
Sergeant Duran has been suspended without pay by NYPD. According to the Daily News, an NYPD official said, “The use of force here is not consistent with our guidelines. We don’t train officers to pick up something and throw it at a suspect.” Duran has faced 17 complaints over his career including a lawsuit that was settled for $20,000 in 2020.