Bruce Blakeman, New York‘s Republican candidate for governor, has vowed to pardon a former NYPD sergeant convicted of manslaughter in the death of a fleeing suspect, who he knocked off a scooter with a cooler.
He made the announcement at a news briefing outside City Hall in New York City Monday morning, flanked by current and former New York lawmakers and calling the sentence a “travesty of justice.”
Sgt. Erik Duran, 38, has been sentenced to three to nine years in prison for manslaughter in the 2023 death of a suspected drug dealer named Eric Duprey, 30.
“To correct this injustice, on Jan. 1, 2027, I will pardon Sgt. Duran, so that he does not have to spend one more day in prison and so that he does not have this terrible conviction against him,” Blakeman said.
NYC JUDGE SEEKS TO MAKE EXAMPLE OF OFFICER WHO THREW COOLER AT FLEEING SUSPECT, CAUSING FATAL CRASH
Prosecutors from New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office had requested a five-to 15-year sentence.
Duprey sold drugs to an undercover officer and fled arrest on a motorized scooter before Duran, who was wearing plainclothes at the time, grabbed a bystander’s cooler and threw it at him.
It struck Duprey, who lost control of the scooter. He crashed and died.
“Sgt. Duran did not intend to use lethal force against Eric Duprey,” Blakeman told reporters. “Duprey chose to get on a motorbike, fleeing the scene at a high rate of speed without a helmet. It’s unfortunate that Eric Duprey passed.”
Duprey had a pending felony assault case at the time, Blakeman said.
“I took this job to save lives,” Duran told the judge at sentencing last week. “I felt terrible once I saw Eric Duprey crash.”
The NYPD sergeant is the first member of the department to be sent to prison for a duty-related death in decades.
Duran’s defense had opted for a bench trial, with no jury, under Bronx Judge Guy Mitchell, an appointee under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, in February.
Mitchell rejected Duran’s argument that the cooler throwing was justified in order to protect other officers from harm by the fleeing suspect and said the sentence would serve as a “general deterrent” for other officers.
“They had enough to investigate and catch him on a different day,” he said of Duran and other officers at the scene. “The distinction is that the deceased will no longer be seen again by his family.”
Vincent Vallelong, the president of the NYPD Sergeant’s Benevolent Association, called the sentence “one of the darkest days in the history of our profession.”
“It wasn’t only Sgt. Duran, a great cop, who was on trial,” he said after sentencing Thursday. “Every law enforcement officer who makes a split second decision in the performance of their duties to protect the public, was also on trial.”
The NYPD fired Duran after his conviction, which he is appealing.
Blakeman, who was commissioner of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority during the 9/11 terror attacks, is currently the county executive in Nassau County, a suburb just east of New York City. He has received President Donald Trump’s endorsement in the race against incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“It’s not just a campaign promise — it’s a common sense, law enforcement-oriented promise,” said Arthur Aidala, Duran’s defense attorney. “And look, Bruce Blakeman is in charge of Nassau County. He has the safest county in the state and one of the safest counties in the country.”
Blakeman has been a vocal critic of New York Democrats on public safety, including the state’s controversial bail reform law, and established a program to deputize private citizens in 2024.
While he has touted Nassau County as the safest in New York under his leadership, critics have countered that it was also dubbed the safest twice under his Democratic predecessor as county executive Laura Curran, in 2020 and 2021, according to PolitiFact.
“Bruce Blakeman put New Yorkers’ safety at risk when he partnered with Trump’s rogue ICE agents, created an armed, untrained MAGA militia that answers only to him, and refused to lift a finger when Trump cut nearly $200M in funding for the NYPD,” said Addison Dick, a spokesperson for the New York State Democratic Party.
Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
