Sgt. Erik Duran, an NYPD Bronx narcotics veteran who joined the drive in 2010, was suspended with out pay simply hours after the deadly afternoon encounter, police stated Thursday, with an NYPD supply declaring using drive outdoors division pointers.
“It’s crazy that the cop threw a cooler at him,” Erika Duprey Soto, 31, the sister of the lifeless man, Eric Duprey, instructed 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 native resident, was with family members when the conflict started on Aqueduct Ave. close to W. one hundred and ninetieth 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,” stated the 42-year-old witness, talking on the situation 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 exhibits Duprey zipping alongside the sidewalk earlier than Duran hoisted the cooler and fired it instantly at Dupree from shut vary, with the rider tumbling off the bike and right into a parked automobile as his two-wheeler skidded to a halt.
The witness recalled how kids on the household get together have been “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 stated the lifeless man had simply bought medication to an undercover officer a block away, including the veteran cop was nonetheless within the mistaken for hurling the cooler.
“The use of force here is not consistent with our guidelines,” stated the NYPD official. “We don’t train officers to pick up something and throw it at a suspect.”
Duprey’s spouse Orlyanis Velez stated police have been offering her with no particulars of the lethal encounter.
“We were given no information,” she instructed 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 stated in an announcement Thursday afternoon.
The metropolis health worker’s workplace will decide the reason for loss of life, with the state legal professional common’s workplace main the investigation with help from the NYPD Force Investigation Division, police stated.
State legislation mandates any loss of life of an civilian that will have been attributable to a police officer have to be probed by the legal professional common’s Office of Special Investigation.
Duran has confronted 17 prior complaints of wrongdoing over his profession, with just one substantiated, for abuse of authority throughout an unwarranted cease, in keeping with public information. He was disciplined simply final month for that substantiated grievance.
Duran earned 38 division citations for glorious or meritorious police responsibility and has made 197 arrests throughout his profession.
He was promoted to sergeant in July 2018 and was named in a pair of lawsuits settled for a complete of $20,000 in 2020.
Duprey’s stepdad, Jose Colon, stood Thursday close to the scene of the confrontation, making an attempt to make sense of what occurred.
“Why couldn’t the cop use any piece of equipment which was authorized for him to use?” he requested. “Why did he hit him with a cooler? What happened to the cop’s Taser?”
The lifeless man’s blood remained seen close to the spot the place the fleeing suspect slammed right into a Jeep.
“They tried to wash it off, but some of it is still left,” stated Colon. “[The police] threw the cooler in the grass.”
A longtime buddy of the sufferer instructed The News Duprey was a form and loving man with an affinity for youngsters.
“He used to take my child out to the park and play with him,” stated Yesenia Guzman, 25, who met the sufferer greater than seven years in the past. “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 stated of the allegations Duprey bought medication to an undercover moments earlier than the crash.
©2023 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”