An NYPD sergeant who killed a drug dealer fleeing on a scooter in the Bronx when he hurled a cooler at him is now under police protection after a “viable threat” was made on his life, police and sources said.
Cops upstate notified the NYPD of the threats against now-suspended Sgt. Erik Duran after the Aug. 23 death of alleged drug dealer Eric Duprey, 30, the sources said.
Duprey sold crack cocaine to the sergeant on Aqueduct Avenue in the Bronx before he tried to flee on a scooter, police said.
Duran was captured on video picking up a cooler and hurling it at Duprey, whose bike crashed into a parked car, killing him instantly.
The department’s Intelligence Division found that possible relatives of Duprey in Pennsylvania “put a hit” on the police officer in retaliation for the cooler killing, the sources said. The NYPD is installing cameras at the sergeant’s Putnam County home and has stationed officers there, the sources said.
“I’ve been advised by my attorney to not give any comment,” Duran told The Post.
His attorney, Andrew Quinn, has said his client would be “exonerated.”
An NYPD spokesman said the threat was not made directly but was “word on the street.”
“They are looking at multiple individuals and they are from different areas and some of them were right in that area [of the Bronx], another person connected to the [Dominican Republic], the spokesman said. “And they’re all bad guys.”
The spokesman said the department would be using all of its tools to investigate the threat.
“We have CIs,” he said. “We have all kinds of stuff.”
The spokesman, who didn’t confirm where the sergeant lives, said local police were also helping out.
