A man who was fleeing a drug bust on a scooter in the Bronx, New York City, has died after an undercover police officer threw a cooler at him.

Eric Duprey was attempting to get away when he crashed to the ground just after 5.20pm on Wednesday - and now NYPD Sergeant Erik Duran has been suspended while cops investigate his involvement in the fatal incident.

Sergeant Duran was working undercover on the Bronx Narcotics Division at the time, conducting a buy-and-bust operation on Aqueduct Avenue. According to police, Duprey sold drugs to the plain-clothed cop, who then tried to arrest him.

Duprey, 30, quickly fled the situation, at which point the cop threw a cooler at him - which he had snatched from a bystander who was on the street with his family.

The fatal impact from the cooler - that was filled with soda cans - caused the suspect to lose control of his scooter and strike a parked Jeep.

Father-of-three Duprey fell to the ground, and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sergeant Duran was suspended early on Thursday morning.

CCTV footage shows the moment that the cooler hit the man on the Bronx street.

An image obtained by DailyMail.com showed the red cooler with a white handle that was lobbed at Duprey during the drug bust.

The NYPD said in a statement: 'Early today, New York City Police Department Sergeant Erik Duran was suspended from duty without pay following a fatal incident in the Bronx on Wednesday afternoon involving a man attempting to flee from the police on a motorcycle.

'The city’s medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

The family of a Tulare man killed by police released video this week they said shows he was not a threat to officers, who shot him in the back as he fled. Joel Villegas was killed by Tulare police about 3:15 p.m. April 16 after a 911 caller reported seeing someone in the area of Bardsley Ave and Vetter Street with a knife, Tulare police said in a news release. Villegas, 34, was remembered by family as a doting father and a person others wanted to be around because he made them smile. “What they did was wrong,” older brother Armando Villegas said. “It was unfair to his wife and kids and family. He mattered.” His family released video from a Tulare officer’s body-worn camera that shows the officer yelling commands as Villegas runs away from him. At one point he trips, before getting up again and continuing to flee. The video shows Villegas never advanced on police before officers fired several rounds. Officers in the video can be heard saying Villegas was not breathing before an officer begins CPR. The shooting was “so egregious,” according to Dale Galipo, the attorney representing one of Villegas’s sons and his father.