[He opened the door with his finger on the trigger? what was he expecting? who taught him to expect it? MORE]. According to the NY Times the Asian police officer who fired the shot that killed an unarmed Black man in a Brooklyn housing project in November has been indicted, according to three people familiar with the grand jury proceedings.
Peter Liang [in photo], 27, who had been on the force for less than 18 months, was patrolling a darkened stairwell at the Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York when he shot and killed Akai Gurley, 28. Less than 12 hours after the shooting, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton acknowledged that the shooting had been a grave error.
The episode promised to bring scrutiny to a longtime police practice of officers drawing their weapons when patrolling stairwells in housing projects. The shooting occurred in the Louis H. Pink Houses in the East New York neighborhood.
A law enforcement official said the indictment against Officer Liang includes six counts: one count of second-degree manslaughter, a class C felony; one count of criminally negligent homicide, a class E felony; one count of reckless endangerment; one count of second-degree assault; and two counts of official misconduct.
A formal announcement by the district attorney’s office was expected on Wednesday afternoon.
When Officer Liang and his partner entered an eighth-floor stairwell in the building, he had his gun drawn, according to the police. At nearly the same moment, Mr. Gurley and his girlfriend entered the seventh-floor stairwell, 14 steps below.
After the incident the New York police commissioner, William J. Bratton, announced that the shooting was accidental and that the victim, Akai Gurley, had done nothing to provoke a confrontation with the officers.
Having just inspected the roof, the officers prepared to conduct what is known as a vertical patrol, an inspection of a building’s staircases, which [according to the NY Times] "tend to be a magnet for criminal activity or quality-of-life nuisances." [MORE]
Both officers took out their flashlights, and one, Peter Liang, 27, a probationary officer with less than 18 months on the job, drew his sidearm, a 9-millimeter semiautomatic.
Officer Liang is left-handed, and he tried to turn the knob of the door that opens to the stairwell with that hand while also holding the gun, according to a high-ranking police official who was familiar with the investigation and who emphasized that the account could change.
It appears that in turning the knob and pushing the door open, Officer Liang rotated the barrel of the gun down and accidentally fired, the official said. He and the other officer both jumped back into the hallway, and Officer Liang shouted something to the effect that he had accidentally fired his weapon, the official said. [opening the door with his finger on the trigger? what was he expecting? who taught him to expect it? [MORE]
Anytime, Anyplace You can Be Lawfully Executed by a White Cop. In other words this may be a case of gross negligence - not murder. Not like the cop murder of Eric Garner, which was done in broad day light by a gang of white cops in front of a group of non-white witnesses and more than 2 cameras. That entire racist episode was captured on video. An ALL WHITE grand jury did not indict the one white cop under investigation. In a white supremacy system, whites must have the ability to easily take non-white life. This does not always include non-white cops who work in their service. Non-whites who work in service of white domination or Black Androids will be scapegoated where necessary and do not poseess the same privileges as their masters. In fact, last week a Black NYPD Cop (Joel Edouard) was charged with assault, attempted assault and official misconduct charges for stomping an unarmed Black man's face while white NYPD cops held him down. No white cops were charged. [MORE] Video below.
The charges against Liang, reported by NY1 on Tuesday afternoon, come two months after a grand jury on Staten Island declined to bring criminal charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, who died after an encounter with the police.
It came at a time of heightened tension between the police and minority communities and was one of several cases that advocates for police reform cited as evidence of overly aggressive police tactics.