BLM seeks murder charge for NYPD cop in Bronx cooler moped death

Apr 14, 2024

Black Lives Matter joined the call for criminal charges against a Bronx NYPD narcotics sergeant who threw a drink cooler at moped operator Eric Duprey as he fled police over a $20 crack sale in the Bronx — a death the city Medical Examiner has ruled a homicide.

“It was not an accident. It was not the result of a crash,” Black Lives Matter Greater NY co-founder Hawk Newsome said in Kingsbridge Heights Saturday as he visited the spot where Duprey, a father of three, was killed.

“It was the result of an unhinged police officer who picked up a cooler full of sodas, full of waters, and slammed it into a man’s face who was riding a scooter down this block.”

Newsome said his group has given a new nickname to Sgt. Erik Duran, the officer under investigation and suspended without pay in Duprey’s death.

“You call him an NYPD cop,” Newsome said. “We call him the ‘Cooler Killer.’”

Duprey, who worked for Uber Eats, was about to be scooped up in a undercover narcotics operation about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when he jumped on his moped and rolled off along Aqueduct Ave.

Duran, an NYPD Bronx narcotics veteran with 13 years on the police force, grabbed a red and white drink cooler from a table and chucked it at Duprey as he sped down the sidewalk.

Black Lives Matter Greater NY co-founder Hawk Newsome, right, with his sister, Chivona Newsome at the memorial on Aqueduct Ave. in the Bronx for Eric Duprey. (Rebecca White)

Surveillance video of the incident shows Duprey losing control of his ride and skidding head-first into a parked car.

Duprey, 30, died of blunt force injuries to the head, the city’s Medical Examiner said Friday. In accordance with state law, his death is under investigation by the state Attorney General’s office.

“What we’re dealing with right now is a murder,” Newsome said. “We will protest until Letitia James, our attorney general, indicts this cop for murder. Not manslaughter. Not criminally negligent homicide. But murder.”

Before his death, Duprey sold $20 of crack to an undercover cop, a police source with knowledge of the case said. When he fled, officers radioed his direction of flight, so Duran knew Duprey was the man his co-workers were trying to apprehend, the source added.

Newsome said Duran’s actions was “the act of someone enraged.”

Hawk Newsome, center, speaks to the media Saturday at the site of Eric Duprey's death. (Rebecca White)

“That’s not police protocol,” he said of the cooler toss. “This is not police procedure.”

The NYPD confirmed Thursday that Duran’s actions “were not consistent with our guidelines.” “We don’t train officers to pick up something and throw it at a suspect,” a department official said.

Duran has been suspended without pay as the NYPD and the State Attorney General’s office conduct probes into Duprey’s death.

His police record includes five cases before the Civilian Complaint Review Board, one of which resulted in discipline. In that 2021 case, Duran was found to have committed abuse of authority in an unlawful street stop. The incident resulted in Duran losing a handful of vacation days.

At an expanding memorial site, longtime friends and neighbors swapped stories of Duprey, describing him as a doting dad who mastered daredevil tricks on his moped.

“He used to do wheelies with one foot,” Hector Miolan said of Duprey. “(He was) loved by everyone in the neighborhood. Especially all the guys on the scooters. He was real good at doing tricks.

“He was a legend,” said Miolan, 39. “It’s really sad.”

Jonathan Roberts, a lawyer with the firm Talkin, Muccigrosso & Roberts who is representing Duprey’s family, called the deliverista “a family man” and said his death “devastated” his children and their mother.

“Another young man gone too soon at the hands of a reckless police officer — a loving partner, father, and son who provided financial and emotional support to his family,” Roberts said Saturday. “Nothing can mitigate this family’s pain, but the individual who committed this heinous act must be held accountable.”

Miolan couldn’t wrap his head around the NYPD sergeant’s actions.

“What makes a cop do something like that?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any sense. They’re supposed to protect us. Not to act like — I don’t mean to say the word — but wild animals.”