Eric Duprey

In August 2023, 30-year-old Eric Duprey had his skull crushed by NYPD sergeant Erik Duran who threw a 40-pound cooler at him that was filled with soda cans and water bottles. Duprey, who was on his scooter, sideswiped a tree and was thrown off his bike. Hitting his head on the curb and landing under a parked vehicle, Duprey died instantly from brain trauma.

On April 9,2026, a Bronx judge handed the “Cooler Killer” cop Duran a three-to-nine-year prison sentence for killing Duprey. Duran was taken directly from the courtroom to the notorious Rikers Island jail. “He deserved the maximum,” Duprey’s partner Orlyanis “Pearl” Velez said. She also observed in response to the killer cop’s sentencing: “He’s in jail. I’m happy. I can sleep now.” A week later, on April 17, an appeals court judge shattered that happiness by setting Duran free on bail while he challenges his conviction. This is an outrage! Duran should rot in jail!

This will require more sustained protest. It took a series of united-front courthouse protests initiated by Black Lives Matter Greater NY and the Open Police Archives Committee NYC to get Duran tried, convicted, and sentenced to jail in the first place. From the outset, the cops countermobilized to back Duran and intimidate the Duprey family. Dozens of cops filled the courtroom at early hearings, while the Duprey family and their allies had just one row of seats. But by the sentencing, the family’s supporters claimed a majority of the seats and overflowed into the hall.

Known affectionately as “Cuajo,“Duprey moved to the Bronx from Puerto Rico in 2015, finding work with the Parks Department before taking a job as an Uber Eats driver. The father of a 3- and 5-year-old, he was in the park when undercover narcs arrived for their fourth “buy-and-bust” operation of the day. These units are infamous for racking-up misconduct allegations, planting and fabricating evidence, averaging 24 arrests a day, with 87 percent of those arrested being Black or Latino.

The cops know damn well that Duran getting found guilty and sentenced to jail was a victory for working-class, black, and brown New York. The forces of “law and order” immediately went on the offensive. The police “unions,” the New York Post and other reactionary outfits are inciting a backlash to secure the reversal of the conviction and sentence. Their message is that Duran was just “doing his job,” i.e., keeping the ghettos and barrios down. The owners of the New York Islanders hockey team ran a jumbotron ad during the team’s season finale to raise money for Duran’s legal fees. A bunch of Republican state reps signed a letter urging Democratic governor Kathy Hochul to pardon Duran, and one Republican candidate for governor is promising to do that “on day one” if elected. In response, Hochul invited Duran to file a pardon application!

The Duprey case shows we need to keep fighting to open the police archives. The narcotics squad covered up the killing from the get-go, claiming it was just a “scooter accident.” When surveillance video was discovered, the cops seized the video equipment to prevent the footage from getting leaked to the public. How many more cases are there where the videotapes and other damning evidence against the cops are buried in police files?

In contrast to Duran, Guy Rivera, a defendant acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter in the 2024 shooting of a cop in Queens, was sentenced the same month to 115 years in prison! The fact that Duran is already back on the street underscores that we cannot win justice for victims of racist cop terror and their families by relying on prosecutors, courts, review boards or Democratic Party politicians.

Shout out to all those who have mobilized at the courthouse to demand justice for Eric Duprey—including Samy Feliz, brother of Allan Feliz who was killed by Bronx cops in 2019, Unified Black Caucus, Parents Supporting Parents, Transit Workers for a Fighting Union, Freedom Socialist Party, Hospital Workers Building Union Power, Spartacist League/U.S., Maoist Communist Union, We the People, InPDUM/Black is Back Coalition, Revolutionary Internationalist Youth, JUPI BX and NY Young Communist League.

We need to keep mobilizing to demand: Justice for Eric Duprey! Put the killer cop away!