{"id":335855,"date":"2026-02-03T11:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/nypd-officer-charged-in-cooler-throw-death-says-he-was-trying-to-protect-colleagues"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:34:12","slug":"nypd-officer-charged-in-cooler-throw-death-says-he-was-trying-to-protect-colleagues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/nypd-officer-charged-in-cooler-throw-death-says-he-was-trying-to-protect-colleagues","title":{"rendered":"NYPD officer charged in cooler throw dying says he was attempting to guard colleagues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB \">NEW YORK &#8212; <\/span>A New York City police sergeant who hurled a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorized scooter, causing a crash that killed the driver, says he was trying to protect other officers from being injured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Testifying Monday at his manslaughter trial, Erik Duran said he was not trying to injure Eric Duprey, 30, when he <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-city-police-drug-bust-death-12868cc26b1866e9c2e769e3f91b0e01\">threw the cooler<\/a> full of ice, water and sodas in August 2023. Authorities have said Duprey, a father of three, had just sold drugs to an undercover officer when he tried to drive off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Duprey, who was not wearing a helmet, lost control of his scooter and crashed into a tree before falling to the pavement. He suffered fatal head injuries and died almost instantaneously, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cHe was gonna crash into us,\u201d Duran, 38, told the court. &#8220;I mean, I didn\u2019t have time. All I had time for was to try again to stop or to try to get him to change directions. That\u2019s all I had the time to think of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Besides the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/new-york-city-police-drug-bust-death-d626686d0cfb95883d8d871c986aea90\">manslaughter charge<\/a>, Duran also faces criminally negligent homicide and assault charges. The nonjury trial is being prosecuted by the state attorney general\u2019s office, which investigates civilian deaths during encounters with law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">During their cross-examination, prosecutors suggested Duran had more time to think than he suggested, saying he chose to pick up a heavy cooler with both hands instead of telling the other officers to move.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Joseph Bianco, one of the prosecutors in the case, asked Duran if he had warned his colleagues about the approaching scooter. When Duran said he didn\u2019t have time to do that, Bianco noted that what the officer \u201cdid have time to do is to take two steps forward down that sidewalk\u201d and pick up the cooler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Duran disputed that the cooler was heavy. He also testified that after the crash, he immediately tried to help Duprey when he saw his injuries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cI said, \u2018Can you hear me? Can you hear me?\u2019 And then I started to notice his injury, and he was in bad shape,\u201d Duran testified.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Duran faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the manslaughter count Closing arguments were scheduled for Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/new-york-police-officer-charged-cooler-throw-death-129815530\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK &#8212; A New York City police sergeant who hurled a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorized scooter, causing a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":335858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13988,13990,13991,13992,419,5024,13994,13989,1606,2812,13993],"class_list":["post-335855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-a-new-york-metropolis-police","tag-eric-duprey","tag-erik-duran","tag-joseph-bianco","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-police-department","tag-nypd-blue","tag-nypd-officer","tag-officer","tag-sergeant","tag-testifying-monday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335857,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335855\/revisions\/335857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}