Brent Hinds, the former singer-guitarist for the Grammy-winning heavy metal band Mastodon, has died in a motorcycle accident in Atlanta, the band and authorities said. He was 51.
Hinds was killed while riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle late Wednesday night when the driver of a BMW SUV failed to yield while making a turn, according to Atlanta police. Hinds was described as “unresponsive” at the scene. An autopsy concluded Hinds, whose legal first name is William, died of “multiple blunt force injuries.”
“We are heartbroken, shocked and still trying to process the loss of this creative force with whom we’ve shared so many triumphs, milestones, and the creation of music that has touched the hearts of so many,” the band said on social media.
Mastodon had three albums rise into the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart and two that topped the Rock Album chart — “Emperor of Sand” in 2017 and “Once More ’round the Sun” in 2014.
Hinds co-founded Mastodon in 2000 with bassist Troy Sanders, guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer Brann Dailor. Mastodon’s third studio album, 2006’s “Blood Mountain,” was their first to reach the Top 40, peaking at No. 32 on the Billboard 200.
Hinds left the band in March 2025. No reason for the departure was given. The band said they had “mutually decided to part ways,” but comments made by Hinds on Instagram indicated a rocky relationship with the members of his former band.
“We’re deeply proud of and beyond grateful for the music and history we’ve shared and we wish him nothing but success and happiness in his future endeavors,” the band said at the time.
Mastodon — which forged ferocious metal, progressive wizardry and sludge rock tendencies — earned six Grammy Award nominations, winning one in 2017 for best metal performance for “Sultan's Curse” from the album “Emperor of Sand.”
Rolling Stone magazine listed Mastodon's 2011 album “The Hunter” among its best off the year, saying the band had "streamlined their molten thrash into a taut thwump that doesn’t pull back one bit on their natural complexity of innate weirdness.”
Hinds was due to tour Europe later this year with Fiend Without a Face, a band that was once a side project during his years with Mastodon.
FILE - Brent Hinds of Mastodon performs at the Louder Than Life Music Festival at Champions Park on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, in Louisville, Ky. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — A former New York City police sergeant is set to be sentenced Thursday for tossing a picnic cooler full of drinks at a fleeing suspect, who then crashed his motorized scooter and died.
The ex-officer, Erik Duran, was convicted of manslaughter in the 2023 death of Eric Duprey. The former sergeant, who said he was trying to protect other officers from the approaching scooter, faces up to 15 years in prison.
The case has animated police on one hand and accountability activists on the other. Duran's union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, says thousands of officers have signed an online petition calling for him to be spared prison. Meanwhile, a couple of dozen protesters demonstrated outside a Bronx courthouse Thursday to demand justice for Duprey.
Duran was part of a narcotics policing group that conducted a “buy-and-bust” operation in the Bronx on Aug. 23, 2023. Police said Duprey sold drugs to an undercover officer, then tried to flee on a scooter.
Surveillance video showed Duprey driving the motorized scooter on a sidewalk toward a group of people. As he approached, the then-sergeant — who wasn't in uniform — picked up a bystander's cooler and thew it.
The container full of ice, water and sodas struck Duprey. He lost control of the scooter, slammed into a tree and crashed onto the pavement.
Duprey, 30, wasn't wearing a helmet. He sustained fatal head injuries and died almost instantly, according to prosecutors with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office.
They argued that Duran had enough time to warn others to move but instead hurled the cooler because he was angry.
Duran, however, testified that he made a split-second decision to keep other officers safe from the scooter speeding toward them.
“He was gonna crash into us,” Duran said in court, adding that “all I had time for was to try again to stop or to try to get him to change directions.”
He testified that he immediately tried to help Duprey after seeing the crash and the extent of the man's injuries.
Duran opted to have a judge, not a jury, decide the case. Judge Guy Mitchell found him guilty, saying that his status as a police officer “has no bearing” on the case.
But Sergeants Benevolent Association President Vincent Vallelong has said the conviction sent “a terrible message to hard-working cops” about the costs of defending themselves and fellow officers.
Duran was a New York Police Department officer for 13 years before he was suspended after the crash. He was dismissed from the force after his conviction this past February.
Duprey worked as a delivery driver and had three young children. His mother, who said she was on a video call with him right before he died, disputed the police claims that he sold drugs and fled from officers.
A lawyer for Duprey's family, Jon Roberts, said they are “hopeful that the court will do justice for Eric and the loss that the entire family has endured and hope that this marks the beginning of the healing process.”
FILE - Gretchen Soto, the mother of Eric Duprey, speaks outside the Bronx Criminal Court in New York, Feb. 6, 2026, after New York police officer Erik Duran was convicted of manslaughter after he tossed a picnic cooler filled with drinks at a fleeing Duprey, causing him to fatally crash his motorized scooter. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
FILE - New York police officer Erik Duran, who is charged with hurling a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorized scooter, causing a crash that killed the driver, arrives to his manslaughter trial at the Bronx Criminal Court in New York, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Kena Betancur, File)
