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4w ago

Ex-NYPD Sergeant Gets 3 to 9 Years for Fatal Cooler Throw

The judge said the prison term is meant to deter reckless uses of force by police.

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FILE - New York police officer Erik Duran, who is charged with hurling a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorized scooter, causing a crash that killed the driver, arrives to his manslaughter trial at the Bronx Criminal Court in New York, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
FILE - Gretchen Soto, the mother of Eric Duprey, speaks outside the Bronx Criminal Court in New York, Feb. 6, 2026, after New York police officer Erik Duran was convicted of manslaughter after he tossed a picnic cooler filled with drinks at a fleeing Duprey, causing him to fatally crash his motorized scooter. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)

Overview

  • Erik Duran, sentenced Thursday to three to nine years, was taken into custody after the judge denied a one-week stay while he appeals.
  • Prosecutors say that during an Aug. 23, 2023 undercover drug sting in the Bronx, Duran threw a bystander's picnic cooler at Eric Duprey as he fled on a scooter, and surveillance video captured the throw and crash.
  • Judge Guy Mitchell found Duran guilty of second-degree manslaughter in a February bench trial, and the NYPD dismissed him after the conviction.
  • Mitchell said suspects can be tracked down later and framed the sentence as a deterrent, as more than 11,000 law enforcement supporters sought no jail time and activists pressed for a stiffer term.
  • Duran is being held at Rikers Island pending appeal, and the rare on-duty killing conviction — the first such NYPD guilty verdict in a decade — could shape how officers weigh split-second decisions.