The immigrant mom of jailed former NYPD Sgt. Erik Duran decried her son’s manslaughter conviction and controversial jail sentence as the top of her household’s American dream Tuesday.
The distraught 63-year-old girl stated in an unique assertion that the household is now caught in a “horrible nightmare” as Duran, a married father of three, languishes behind bars whereas attempting to attraction the decision handed down by a Bronx decide.
“We got here to this nation to lift our household and to pursue the American dream, however that dream ended the day our son was wrongfully convicted after which sentenced to jail,” she advised The Put up.
“Our dream and Erik’s dream of serving his metropolis within the NYPD has become a horrible nightmare that we reside daily.”
Duran, 38, has been locked up since Thursday, when Bronx Choose Man Mitchell sentenced him to 3-to-9 years in jail for fatally flinging a picnic cooler at a drug suspect trying to flee arrest throughout an undercover sting in 2023.
Duran’s mom, who didn’t need to be recognized, got here to New York from Ecuador in 1981, whereas the ex-cop’s father had reached the Empire State from the identical South American nation a couple of years earlier, in 1978.
The 13-year legislation enforcement veteran has stated he grew up in a crime-plagued Bronx neighborhood and that he was impressed to affix the NYPD after he noticed police race towards hazard throughout the Sept. 11, 2001 terror assaults.
He later married his highschool sweetheart — in a Bronx courthouse down the block from the room the place he was sentenced.
“His youngsters don’t have their father, his spouse has misplaced a husband and I’ve misplaced my son,” his distraught mother stated in an announcement by way of Duran’s authorized group.
“The place is the justice in that? We pray daily that his legal professionals can win his attraction and produce our son dwelling.”
Duran insisted throughout his trial — in a case introduced by the state Lawyer Normal’s Workplace — that he threw the cooler at 30-year-old Eric Duprey to guard the lives of different cops within the path of the suspect’s motorized scooter on a Highbridge sidewalk.
However Mitchell, on the non-jury trial, decided that Duran’s use of lethal power was not justifiable – and deemed he was solely attempting to arrest Duprey, quite than save lives, when he chucked the total Igloo cooler on Aug. 23, 2023.
The picnic gear hit Duprey, a dad of two, within the arm, inflicting him to lose management of the moped and crash, leaving him with deadly head trauma.
Mitchell stated throughout final week’s sentencing that the punishment would function a “common deterrent ” for different cops.
His authorized group is now preventing the second-degree manslaughter conviction, whereas additionally making a Hail Mary bid to get the Putnam County resident out of jail on bail pending the attraction.
“We pray daily that this attraction goes effectively for him. We would like him dwelling as quickly as doable … we’re very assured that it’s going to occur,” Duran’s uncle, Luis Torres, advised The Put up in an interview Tuesday.
“He doesn’t need to be [in prison,]” stated Torres, 50, who’s married to a sister of Duran’s father. “He’s an important, nice man and hopefully he can come dwelling along with his household as a result of they actually need him.”
He described Duran as a devoted dad and stated he set an instance for different cops whereas he was on the job, including that the household was devastated over the “injustice.”
“He tried to guard all of the group [in the Bronx] and all of the households round, all the youngsters,” Torres stated.
Duran was fired by the NYPD when he was convicted by Mitchell in February.
His former union, the Sergeants Benevolent Affiliation, has launched a fundraiser with the Nationwide Police Protection Basis to assist increase cash for his authorized case.
