New York — A New York City police sergeant who threw a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorcycle, causing a crash that killed the driver, said he was trying to protect other officers from injury.
Testifying Monday in his manslaughter trial, Eric Duran said he was not trying to harm Eric Dupree, 30, when he… He threw a cooler Filled with ice, water and soft drinks in August 2023. Authorities said Dupree, a father of three, had just sold drugs to an undercover officer when he tried to flee.
Dupree, who was not wearing a helmet, lost control of his scooter and hit a tree before falling to the sidewalk. He suffered fatal head injuries and died almost instantly, prosecutors said.
“He was going to bump into us,” Duran, 38, told the court. “I mean, I didn’t have time. All I had time to do was try to stop again or try to get him to change direction. That’s all I had time to think about.”
Besides Manslaughter chargeDuran also faces charges of murder and criminally negligent assault. The trial without a jury is being prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office, which investigates civilian deaths during encounters with law enforcement.
During their questioning, prosecutors suggested Duran had more time to think than he suggested, saying he chose to pick up a heavy cooler with both hands rather than ask the other officers to move.
Joseph Bianco, one of the plaintiffs in the case, asked Duran if he had warned his colleagues about the scooter’s approach. When Duran said he didn’t have time to do that, Bianco noted that what the officer had “time to do was take two steps forward on that sidewalk” and pick up the cooler.
Doran suspected the cooler was heavy. He also testified that after the accident he immediately tried to help Dupree when he saw his injuries.
“I said, ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me?’ And then I started to notice his injury, and he was in bad shape.”
Duran faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter, and closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday.