NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City police sergeant who hurled a plastic cooler at a man fleeing officers on a motorized scooter, causing a crash that killed the driver, says he was trying to protect other officers from being injured.
Testifying Monday at his manslaughter trial, Erik Duran said he was not trying to injure Eric Duprey, 30, when he threw the cooler full of ice, water and sodas in August 2023. Authorities have said Duprey, a father of three, had just sold drugs to an undercover officer when he tried to drive off.
Duprey, who was not wearing a helmet, lost control of his scooter and crashed into a tree before falling to the pavement. He suffered fatal head injuries and died almost instantaneously, prosecutors said.
“He was gonna crash into us,” Duran, 38, told the court. "I mean, I didn’t have time. All I had time for was to try again to stop or to try to get him to change directions. That’s all I had the time to think of.”
Besides the manslaughter charge, Duran also faces criminally negligent homicide and assault charges. The nonjury trial is being prosecuted by the state attorney general’s office, which investigates civilian deaths during encounters with law enforcement.
During their cross-examination, prosecutors suggested Duran had more time to think than he suggested, saying he chose to pick up a heavy cooler with both hands instead of telling the other officers to move.
Joseph Bianco, one of the prosecutors in the case, asked Duran if he had warned his colleagues about the approaching scooter. When Duran said he didn’t have time to do that, Bianco noted that what the officer “did have time to do is to take two steps forward down that sidewalk” and pick up the cooler.
Duran disputed that the cooler was heavy. He also testified that after the crash, he immediately tried to help Duprey when he saw his injuries.
“I said, ‘Can you hear me? Can you hear me?’ And then I started to notice his injury, and he was in bad shape,” Duran testified.
Duran faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on the manslaughter count. Closing arguments were scheduled for Tuesday.
FILE - A memorial for Eric Duprey is seen in the Bronx borough of New York, Aug. 25, 2023. (AP Photo/Jake Offenhartz, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is losing ground amid mixed trading on Tuesday, while gold and silver bounce back from their latest sell-off.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.9% and fell further from its all-time high set last week, even though the majority of stocks within the index rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 189 points, or 0.4%, as of 12:20 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.6% lower.
Several influential Big Tech stocks weighed on the market, including drops of 3.3% for Nvidia and 2.9% for Microsoft. They helped drown out a 6.5% climb for Palantir Technologies, which reported bigger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its forecast for 61% growth in revenue this year also topped analysts’ expectations.
The action was stronger, again, in metals markets. Gold’s price climbed 6.8% to $4,970.40 per ounce in its latest swing since its jaw-dropping rally suddenly halted last week. Silver’s price, which has been whipping through even wilder moves, leaped 11.6%.
Gold and silver prices had been climbing for more than a year as investors looked for safer places to park their cash amid worries about everything from tariffs to a weaker U.S. dollar to heavy debt loads for governments worldwide. Their prices took off in particular last month, and gold’s price at one point had roughly doubled over 12 months.
But those rallies suddenly gave out last week, and gold’s price dropped from close to $5,600 to less than $4,500 on Monday. Silver plunged 31.4% on Friday alone.
Many traders say expectations that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to fight inflation were what turned the momentum initially, though some disagree. Most agree that simple gravity took over afterward.
After gold and silver prices had shot up so much, so quickly, they were bound to fall back at some point, particularly with so many investors piling in to use gold as a way to bet on continued weakness for the U.S. dollar.
“The move underscored how stretched anti-USD positioning had become,” according to volatility strategists at Barclays.
On Wall Street, PayPal dropped 19.7% after reporting weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also named a new CEO after it said “the pace of change and execution” over the last two years “was not in line” with the board of directors’ expectations.
Pfizer fell 3.5% even though it reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The pharmaceutical company gave a forecasted range for profit in 2026 whose midpoint was below analysts’ expectations.
The Walt Disney Co. slipped 0.6% after it said Josh D’Amaro, head of the company’s parks business, will become its next CEO in March.
On the winning side of the market was PepsiCo, which rose 3.2% after the snack and beverage giant’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter nudged past analysts’ expectations. It also said it would cut prices this year on Lay’s, Doritos and other snacks to try and win back inflation-weary customers.
DaVita rallied 20.3% after the provider of dialysis and other health care services likewise delivered a better profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.29%, where it was late Monday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes bounced back in Asia from sharp losses the prior day.
South Korea’s Kospi surged 6.8% for its best day since the wild days of the COVID crash and recovery in early 2020. Just a day earlier, it had tumbled 5.3% from its record for its worst day in almost 10 months. The Kospi is home to many tech stocks, including Samsung Electronics, which surged 11.4%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rallied 3.9%, while stocks rose 1.3% in Shanghai and 0.2% in Hong Kong.
Indexes were mixed in Europe.
AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
Trader Ryan Falvey works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Joseph Maguire works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialists, from left, Dilip Patel, Glenn Carell, and Michael Pistillo work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Options trader Phil Fracassini, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A board above the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange displays the closing number for the Dow Jones industrial average, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
People walk near an electronic stock board at a securities firm in Tokyo Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (Masanori Kumagai/Kyodo News via AP)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board at a securities firm in Tokyo Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (Masanori Kumagai/Kyodo News via AP)
Specialist Anthony Matesic works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
