24 August 2023
Sgt. Erik Duran, an NYPD Bronx narcotics veteran who joined the force in 2010, was suspended without pay just hours after the lethal afternoon encounter, police said Thursday, with an NYPD source declaring the use of force outside department guidelines.
“It’s crazy that the cop threw a cooler at him,” Erika Duprey Soto, 31, the sister of the dead man, Eric Duprey, told the Daily News. “He used to work as a delivery man for Uber, DoorDash. He used the same scooter for deliveries that he was riding yesterday when he was attacked.”
“I still can’t understand what happened,” she added as tears rolled down her face. “He’s gone. I loved my brother to death.”
An eyewitness, a 25-year local resident, was with relatives when the clash began on Aqueduct Ave. near W. 190th St. in Kingsbridge Heights at about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Duprey, a 30-year-old father of three, “was on the bike, moving north when the cops started chasing him,” said the 42-year-old witness, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “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.”
Surveillance video obtained by The News shows Duprey zipping along the sidewalk before Duran hoisted the cooler and fired it directly at Dupree from close range, with the rider tumbling off the motorcycle and into a parked car as his two-wheeler skidded to a halt.
The witness recalled how children at the family party were “almost paralyzed by what they saw. I think he died the moment he fell on the ground, because there was no movement. The cops tried doing CPR, but that did not do any good.”
A police official said the dead man had just sold drugs to an undercover officer a block away, adding the veteran cop was nonetheless in the wrong for hurling the cooler.
“The use of force here is not consistent with our guidelines,” said the NYPD official. “We don’t train officers to pick up something and throw it at a suspect.”
Duprey’s wife Orlyanis Velez said police were providing her with no details of the deadly encounter.
“We were given no information,” she told The News. “I am scared as [police] are acting as if nothing happened.”
“The NYPD is committed to ensuring that there will be a full, thorough and transparent investigation of this incident to determine the facts and to take the appropriate steps forward,” a police spokesman said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
The city medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of death, with the state attorney general’s office leading the investigation with assistance from the NYPD Force Investigation Division, police said.
State law mandates any death of an civilian that may have been caused by a police officer must be probed by the attorney general’s Office of Special Investigation.
Duran has faced 17 prior complaints of wrongdoing over his career, with only one substantiated, for abuse of authority during an unwarranted stop, according to public records. He was disciplined just last month for that substantiated complaint.
Duran earned 38 department citations for excellent or meritorious police duty and has made 197 arrests during his career.
He was promoted to sergeant in July 2018 and was named in a pair of lawsuits settled for a total of $20,000 in 2020.
Duprey’s stepdad, Jose Colon, stood Thursday near the scene of the confrontation, trying to make sense of what happened.
“Why couldn’t the cop use any piece of equipment which was authorized for him to use?” he asked. “Why did he hit him with a cooler? What happened to the cop’s Taser?”
Police secure the scene on Aqueduct Ave. at W. 190th St. in the Bronx on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. (Sam Costanza/for New York Daily News)
The dead man’s blood remained visible near the spot where the fleeing suspect slammed into a Jeep.
“They tried to wash it off, but some of it is still left,” said Colon. “[The police] threw the cooler in the grass.”
A longtime friend of the victim told The News Duprey was a kind and loving man with an affinity for children.
“He used to take my child out to the park and play with him,” said Yesenia Guzman, 25, who met the victim more than seven years ago. “My son used to drive a toy truck, and [Duprey] ran right behind him, laughing. He was great with kids, always has been.”
“He was loved by everyone around here,” added Junior Guzman, Yesenia’s twin brother. “Young, old, teenagers, he helped everyone. That’s why everyone is here today at his memorial.”
“I don’t know anything about drug dealing,” Junior Guzman said of the allegations Duprey sold drugs to an undercover moments before the crash.
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