BERLIN (AP) — Many households and businesses in south-west Berlin face days without electricity after high-voltage power lines were damaged by a fire which city authorities said Sunday was a result of a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists."
The fire broke out on Saturday morning on a cable bridge over the Teltow Canal, near the Lichterfelde power plant, according to local authorities. Initially, over 45,000 households and 2,200 businesses in four districts were without electricity. Heating and internet services were also affected.
Franziska Giffey, the city's Senator for Economic Affairs, described the incident as “a particularly severe power outage affecting tens of thousands of households and businesses, including care facilities, hospitals, numerous social institutions and companies.”
While power was restored to thousands of households by Sunday, many others are likely to be left in the dark until Thursday, authorities estimate.
Snowy weather and freezing temperatures has slowed down efforts to restore electricity and made life extra difficult for those affected.
The incident is being investigated as a possible act of arson. Authorities compared it to a similar power outage last September in southeast Berlin, when radical activists claimed responsibility.
Authorities said they were working to confirm the authenticity of a letter claiming responsibility for the latest incident.
The perpetrators were “clearly left-wing extremists," Berlin’s Mayor Kai Wegner was cited as saying by a German news agency. “It is unacceptable that once again clearly left-wing extremists have attacked our power grid and thereby endangered human lives,” Wegner said.
FILE - Steam leaves a cooling tower of the Lichterfelde gas-fired power plant near a cable bridge crossing the Teltow canal in Berlin, Germany, on March 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
Passers-by stand in the light of a fire department help point in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2025, during a power cut in south-west Berlin after a fire on a cable bridge. (Christoph Gollnow/dpa via AP)
Emergency vehicles from the aid organization "Die Johanniter" pick up residents of a retirement home in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2025, during a power cut in south-west Berlin after a fire on a cable bridge. (Michael Ukas/dpa via AP)
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)
