The Latest on the Police Killing of Eric Duprey

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Last Wednesday, a week ago today, Eric Duprey was killed when an NYPD officer knocked him off a motorbike. Various news outlets have reported that Duprey was fleeing from police in what appeared to be a drug bust gone wrong. Sergeant Erik Duran, a plainclothes officer with the Bronx Narcotics Unit, threw a cooler at Duprey's head. The city medical examiner determined Duprey's death was a homicide caused by blunt force injuries of the head after his motorcycle crash following being hit by the cooler. Here's Daniel Nunez, a friend of Duprey's, describing the incident at WNYC during Saturday's memorial service.

Daniel Nunez: "He didn't accidentally kill him. No, he killed him on purpose. He threw that cooler with all his power and energy. That cooler exploded soon as he hit him with it. That ain't right. That ain't right."

Brian Lehrer: Of course, the officer would dispute that he was trying to kill Duprey, but both Duprey's wife and his sister told Gothamist that he was not known, to them, to have sold drugs. There was also a question of whether Duprey thought he was being pursued by police at all. Duprey was a father of three young children, ages nine, five, and three, and worked as a delivery driver, according to the Associated Press. He was 30 years old.

Joining me now with the latest on the incident is Bahar Ostadan, WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering the NYPD and public safety. Hi, Bahar. Thanks for coming on the show.

Bahar Ostadan: Hi, Brian. It's great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Before we talk about his death, can we talk about Eric Duprey as a human being a little bit? I mentioned a few facts there. Father of three, 30 years old. Do we know anything else?

Bahar Ostadan: A little bit. I met some of his family and friends at a memorial service that was held for Duprey on Saturday. He liked motorbikes. He spent time with his siblings and friends in the area that he was later killed. As you said, he has three young children, and we'd like to learn more.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Police are saying that Duprey was fleeing a drug bust. Has it been confirmed that it was even a drug bust or that Duprey was even fleeing?

Bahar Ostadan: The official statement so far from the NYPD has been that Duprey was fleeing from police. They actually haven't publicly or officially stated that it was a drug bust. They've told some news outlets we have on background that this was a buy-and-bust operation, which we can talk about. I think time will hopefully tell and we'll get more information on what exactly happened in the minutes leading up to Duprey's death. I don't know if this is the same for you, Brian, but when I think of the word drug bust, for me it evokes imagery of a large-scale criminal operation.

The Narcotics Unit certainly works on much smaller scale hand-to-hand sales too. I think there's a lot of information missing about what happened here.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. When I hear buy and bust, maybe they're going eventually for the bigger fish, but it sounds like a smaller thing. Like an undercover cop goes to buy a personal quantity of drugs from somebody, makes the deal, and then busts them.

Bahar Ostadan: Right.

Brian Lehrer: As we heard from Duprey's friend in the clip, the incident was obviously troubling no matter what precipitated it. Eric Duprey died. WNYC and Gothamist were able to review surveillance video of the scene. I've seen it online too. What does it show to your eye?

Bahar Ostadan: Firstly, it's, I think, important to remember that this is just a 17-second-long surveillance video taken from across the street where Eric was killed. It offers us just sort of a snippet, a small view into what happened here. What you can see in the video is that two unmarked police cars, one van and a regular-sized car, were parked in the middle of the street with at least three officers in uniform sitting inside. Then at least one plainclothes officer, who we now know is Sergeant Erik Duran, was standing on the sidewalk.

Eric Duprey is riding down the sidewalk on a motorbike, and you can see as he's approaching the sergeant that the sergeant rushes toward him on the edge of the sidewalk right where he'll be riding by. He picks up the cooler, as you said, Brian, and throws it at him from a very close range. Duprey then-- his bike flips. He knocks over a metal barricade on the street and actually crashes into a parked car. His body is wedged under the car.

Pretty instantly the sergeant sprints after Duprey, possibly to make an arrest quickly. He's the first there. Three officers were there within a second. You can see in the video as they realize Duprey's physical state and actually take a step back away from the body to call for emergency medical response. Duprey was pronounced dead at the scene. It's unclear if there's other footage of what happened. Police haven't said in this case if there were body-worn cameras on some of the plainclothes officers. It's possible there's also other surveillance footage, but so far all we have is the 17-second clip.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any questions or comments on the police killing of Eric Duprey in the Bronx one week ago today for WNYC and Gothamist NYPD and public safety reporter Bahar Ostadan? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Bahar, people have probably seen in the news that this death has been ruled a homicide by the medical examiner. I guess we should clarify that homicide doesn't mean that the medical examiner has concluded that it was murder, which is a criminal offense, but homicide does mean that he died at the hand of another human. Right?

Bahar Ostadan: That's exactly right.

Brian Lehrer: They have established at least that the officer was responsible for his death. You report that the police officer involved, Sergeant Erik Duran, was suspended without pay following the incident. Gothamist was able to obtain his disciplinary record, I see. What did you find out about Duran?

Bahar Ostadan: Duran is a sergeant detective with the Bronx Narcotics Unit. That means he's not a street-level officer assigned to a specific precinct. He's in a specialized narcotics unit under the New York City Police Department. He's been with the police department since 2010, and in that time he's received 17 allegations of police misconduct. Just one was substantiated by the oversight agency of the NYPD. It was regarding a wrongful stop-and-frisk.

I would just note it's important to keep in mind allegations that aren't substantiated doesn't necessarily mean that something didn't happen. Sometimes the oversight agency can't find surveillance footage or sufficient evidence. Maybe the officer didn't have their body-worn camera on at the time, so the agency can't get footage. Sometimes the person complaining just drops out of the process.

He was also sued. He's been sued two times. One in 2019, similarly for an unlawful stop-and-frisk and unlawful imprisonment and assault, and then another in 2020 for unlawful imprisonment. In the same period that he received most of his allegations of police misconduct, he also received 17 awards internally at the police department for excellent police duties and six awards for meritorious police duty. Then the last note, I'll just say that in July, Duran was disciplined internally at the department for "wrongfully stopping an individual known to the department." His discipline at that point was-- he could have lost up to 10 vacation days.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC and Gothamist did cover that memorial for Duprey on Saturday. Here's a soundbite that we brought back from Hawk Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Greater New York. I think he's stating the obvious here. Listen.

Hawk Newsome: "I don't care how the NYPD tries to paint this picture. They cannot justify an officer lifting up a cooler from the street and slamming it into a man's face. Our mayor is awfully quiet."

Brian Lehrer: Yes. I don't know who would justify an officer lifting up a cooler from the street and slamming it into a man's face, as he described it there. Maybe unless there was an assault, attempt to hurt or kill somebody in progress by the individual, but nobody alleges that Eric Duprey was doing anything like that. The most serious allegation is that he may have been trying to flee from a buy-and-bust operation. To Hawk Newsome's point, what is the mayor saying about this incident?

Bahar Ostadan: The mayor actually hasn't said anything about what happened. When we asked his office yesterday, they referred us to statements that have already been put out by the NYPD and the Attorney General's Office. The New York City Police Department Commissioner, Edward Caban, has also not spoken publicly about what happened. There have been a couple elected officials that have spoken, like the local Council member and Congressman Ritchie Torres, who oversees that area. They've both spoken out. Other than that, we haven't heard from the mayor yet.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from somebody who says she lives near the area. Linda in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Linda.

Linda: Hello. Hi. Listen, I feel really bad that the young man was killed, especially with the situation; his family and everything. I've been living here about 50 years now, and that area, it's maybe two, three blocks away from where I'm at. There's a lot of dope-pedaling going on. It's changed the whole nature of my neighborhood. It used to be a solid working-class neighborhood. I thought the police had given up on us, to tell you the truth. Now I find out that this incident happened. I don't condone that that thing was thrown at a--

Brian Lehrer: Oh, did we lose Linda's line? I don't know what happened there, but Linda, I think we get your point. I guess that's another aspect to the story. Obviously, we're focusing on the fact that somebody was killed by a police officer in the process of this possible buy-and-bust operation. Bahar, I guess another aspect of the story is, yes, increasing drug sales, according to the listener, in the Kingsbridge Heights area.

Bahar Ostadan: Yes. It's definitely a good question, Linda. The local Council member, Pierina Sanchez, spoke out saying, "I've heard from community members. I get calls all the time. There's illegal activity in this block. I don't feel safe." On the other hand, I think it sounds like a lot of people in the neighborhood have been stopped and frisked for no reason, or pushed around by an officer who spoke to them the wrong way. Drug charges in that precinct of your area, Linda, have gone up this past summer. We're going to be publishing a story about that today or tomorrow, so stay tuned.

I think what's important, and this goes without saying, but even in the case if someone was making a drug sale, justice under the law for that person is not death. It's been well established at this point as we study research on the war on drugs since the Nixon days that that aggressive policing in response to drug activity doesn't actually reduce drug use or drug sales.

Brian Lehrer: Linda's line dropped before she was able to make one of the points that we knew she was trying to make, but we have several other callers who want to make the same point. I'm going to let Lauren in the Bronx give it a shot. Lauren, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Lauren: Yes, hi. Thank you. I have two issues, but both on the same wavelength, which is that everybody is looking at the police for blame and no one seems to be looking at Duprey. One thing that caught my attention was that they're investigating the police officer. I think in that neighborhood they should be investigating the family now for benefit fraud and tax fraud because it's pretty clear that he was stealing drugs. Where did the money go? The family's comments that they don't think he was a drug dealer, I found completely incredible. Especially since the day after the funeral, the day after the funeral, they're filing a case in civil court. You could almost use-

Brian Lehrer: Well-

Lauren: -the Liberace expression--

Brian Lehrer: This is not that. This is not-- Go ahead. I'd like to finish the thought. The Liberace expression is what?

Lauren: They grieve all the way to the bank. In terms of the death sentence, dude, the guy, I think it's pretty clear, is a criminal. I think it's pretty clear he was busting drugs. No one is saying that they went up to him out of the blue just because--

Brian Lehrer: Right. All right. Lauren, you've made your point. I'm going to leave it there, and I appreciate your call. Yes, there's all kinds of drug selling going on in New York and all over the world. It certainly is not confirmed that that's what Eric Duprey was involved with, but it's possible. When a police officer throws a cooler at somebody and kills him when he is just trying to get away from a bust, that takes the story to another level.

We cover the drug trade all the time, the fentanyl and other opioid addiction epidemic in the United States, and obviously, that leads back to people who sell drugs and the drug trade generally. When an officer kills a suspect who's not being violent, then the state has to be accountable for the way it treats its citizens. That's why that's the primary focus here.

The argument, Bahar, that neither Linda nor Lauren ever were able to get to-- I guess Lauren may have switched up her topic, but what Linda wasn't able to finish, and the number of other callers are raising, is that Duprey, according to the surveillance video, was riding on the sidewalk, which is also a dangerous thing. Something we've actually talked a lot about on this show, scooter riders, even e-bike riders, who get up on the sidewalk and it's absolutely dangerous. The police haven't been enforcing that, and that's another issue. Still, when we get to a police officer throwing a cooler at a guy and killing him on the motorbike, it's at another level.

Bahar Ostadan: That's right, Brian. I think some of the questions that I've been asking is, regardless of what happened leading up to that moment and what the police officer's motivation may have been in trying to arrest Duprey, what was the urgency to take such a risk in stopping him the way that he did, as opposed to following the NYPD Patrol Guide and waiting to stop him in a way that was safe for him, for the community, and for the officers?

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio, and live-streaming at wnyc.org.

The historian and New Yorker SAS, Jill Lepore, coming up in a few minutes after we finish up with our Bahar Ostadan, who covers the NYPD and public safety for WNYC and Gothamist, on the police killing of Eric Duprey a week ago today.

Your report, Bahar, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey issued a memo earlier this month instructing that "a vehicle pursuit must be terminated whenever the risks to members of the service and the public outweigh the danger to the community if the suspect is not immediately apprehended." That memo suggests that the escalation of vehicle pursuits are or were getting dangerous. What have been some of the outcomes? Why did he feel the need to issue that memo at this time?

Bahar Ostadan: That's exactly right. The news outlet The City reported recently, in just the first three months of this year, we've seen nearly a 600% increase in police vehicle pursuits under recently appointed Chief of Patrol, John Chell. I think there have been a handful of outcomes. In the worst-case scenarios, we've had several fatalities so far. There was one incident that The City reported where a 22-year-old and his passenger were killed last August when an ATV they were riding on crashed as they were being chased by police. In another instance, earlier this month actually, there was a driver pursued by police who struck and killed a 74-year-old pedestrian in the Bronx.

Then there are smaller-scale outcomes, too. A bicyclist was hospitalized a few weeks ago. I think the question is-- it's a subjective question of when to terminate a vehicle pursuit or determining whether the risk to members of the community and the service outweigh the danger to the community if the suspect isn't apprehended, which is what the Patrol Guide says and what Chief of Department Maddrey stated, as you said.

think there are some questions to be answered. I've heard from some sources that at the sergeant level, officers are getting the go-ahead to pursue car chases more than they have in the past. I think the department seems to be expecting more scrutiny on that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. The news site The City recently reported that the first three months of 2023 saw an increase of nearly 600% in police vehicle pursuits. Is that an Adams directive? Is there any way to know?

Bahar Ostadan: It's unclear exactly where this is coming from, but I will know-- which The City also reported that there was the top chief in charge of the NYPD's Risk Management Bureau. His name is Chief Matthew Pontillo. He had expressed concern about the department's massive surge in these car chases, and he was fired earlier this month by the police commissioner.

Brian Lehrer: The new police commissioner, right?

Bahar Ostadan: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: Came in and fired him? Do we know if that was the reason? Because they had a policy dispute over vehicle chases?

Bahar Ostadan: It's hard to say. As goes without saying, it's very, very difficult to get information out of the department. Hopefully, more information will come out as time goes on.

Brian Lehrer: Bahar Ostadan, WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering the NYPD and public safety generally. Thanks so much for coming on.

Bahar Ostadan: Thanks, Brian.

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