A Bronx Supreme Court judge found NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran was guilty of manslaughter on Friday for throwing a plastic cooler at a suspect who was fleeing a drug bust on a scooter — a split-second decision during a chaotic sidewalk pursuit that ended with the suspect dead and now an officer facing up to 15 years in prison.

According to Fox News, Duran, 38, struck Eric Duprey with the cooler as Duprey sped along a Bronx sidewalk in August 2023, moments after allegedly selling $20 worth of cocaine to undercover officers in a buy-and-bust operation. Duprey lost control, crashed, and was pronounced dead minutes later.

Judge Guy Mitchell delivered the verdict after a three-week bench trial — Duran had waived his right to a jury. The case was prosecuted not by the local district attorney but by New York Attorney General Letitia James' office, which holds jurisdiction over police-involved deaths under a 2015 state law.

A cop's split-second call, judged in slow motion

Duran testified in his own defense. His explanation was direct: "I thought he was going to kill my guys."

The sergeant told the court he threw the cooler to protect fellow plainclothes narcotics officers as Duprey barreled down the sidewalk on a motorized vehicle. Duran joined the NYPD in 2010 and had been recognized dozens of times for excellent and meritorious police service, according to a police personnel database.

None of that mattered to Judge Mitchell.

"After consideration of all evidence, the people proved beyond all reasonable doubt that this defendant was not justified."

That single line — "not justified" — carries enormous weight. Not that the outcome was tragic. Not that the force was disproportionate. That it wasn't justified at all. A veteran officer watching a suspect on a motorized vehicle tear down a sidewalk toward his team, who reached for the nearest object at hand, has now been told by the state of New York that his instinct to protect his colleagues was criminal.

The message to every cop in New York

Sergeants Benevolent Association President Vincent Vallelong did not mince words:

"We vigorously maintain Sgt. Duran's innocence. The verdict rendered by Judge Mitchell is clearly against the weight of the credible evidence."

His second statement cut deeper — not as a defense of Duran specifically, but as a warning about what this verdict means systemically:

"Verdicts such as this send a terrible message to hard-working cops: Should you use force to defend yourself, your fellow police officers or the citizens of the city? No matter how justified your actions, you risk criminal charges and conviction."

Vallelong called the verdict a "miscarriage of justice." The SBA represents the sergeants who supervise patrol officers on the most dangerous streets in America. When their union president tells members that protecting themselves and their teams now carries the risk of a felony conviction, the practical effect is obvious. Officers will hesitate. They will second-guess. And the people who pay the price for that hesitation won't be judges or attorneys general — they'll be the residents of neighborhoods like the Bronx who need policing the most.

According to the New York Post, Duran is the first NYPD officer found guilty of a crime for causing a death while on duty in approximately a decade. That statistic alone should prompt serious reflection about what changed — not in policing, but in the political environment surrounding it.

What the prosecution chose to pursue

Consider the chain of events stripped to its essentials:

• A suspect allegedly sells cocaine to undercover officers
• Plainclothes officers move to arrest him
• The suspect flees on a motorized vehicle — on a sidewalk
• A sergeant throws a plastic cooler to stop him
• The suspect crashes and dies

Every link in that chain begins with the suspect's choices. The decision to allegedly deal drugs. The decision to flee. The decision to ride a motorized vehicle down a sidewalk where pedestrians walk. Those choices created the danger. Duran responded to it.

Yet it was Letitia James' office — not the Bronx DA — that prosecuted this case. The 2015 law granting the attorney general jurisdiction over police-involved deaths was designed to address concerns about local prosecutors being too cozy with the police departments they work alongside daily. In practice, it created an alternative prosecution pipeline with its own political incentives. James is not a figure known for restraint when a case carries political currency.

Duran's disciplinary record does include a substantiated complaint from 2022 for abusing his authority during a stop, according to the city's Civilian Complaint Review Board. That's a legitimate mark. But a prior complaint about a stop doesn't transform a manslaughter case built on a thrown cooler into an open-and-shut conviction. The question before the court was whether Duran's use of force in that specific moment was justified — and the answer required ignoring the reality that a fleeing suspect on a sidewalk-bound vehicle posed a genuine threat to officers and bystanders alike.

What comes next

Duran faces up to 15 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 19.

The practical consequences extend far beyond one courtroom. Every NYPD officer working narcotics, patrol, or any unit that involves foot pursuits now operates under a new precedent: if you use improvised force to stop a fleeing suspect and the suspect dies, you may be charged with manslaughter — even if you believed your fellow officers were in danger.

The officers who still show up, who still run toward the chaos in neighborhoods where $20 drug deals happen on sidewalks, deserve better than a system that criminalizes their instincts while the criminals who create these situations are treated as victims of the officers chasing them.

Duran threw a cooler. New York threw the book.