A New York Police Department officer was found guilty Thursday of manslaughter in the 2014 shooting death of an unarmed man in the stairwell of a Brooklyn public-housing complex. As Liang’s gun fired, the bullet hit Gurley in the chest.
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Last year, Ken Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, said that that his office conducted “a thorough investigation” into the shooting before a grand jury returned a six-count indictment charging Liang with second-degree manslaughter as well as negligent homicide, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct.
Liang is the first NYPD officer that has been put on trial for killing a civilian since 2008, and the first NYPD officer to be found guilty of killing a civilian in decades.
He faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced in April.
Prosecutors argued that Liang was “sworn to protect” Gurley, but failed to do so by having his gun out during the vertical patrol.
Officer Liang, who tearfully testified in his own defense earlier this week, said his gun went off by accident when he was startled by a sound in the pitch-black stairwell.
“Obviously he’s distraught”, Liang’s attorney Robert Brown told NY1.
“What happened here is a tragedy”, defense attorney Rae Koshetz said.
“This was a awful and tragic accident and not a crime”, he said. “But it’s not a crime”.
Liang gave tearful testimony on the stand Monday, just before both sides rested in the case.
The jury in Liang’s trial deliberated for a little more than two days, the New York Times reports.
Then he went looking for the bullet and heard someone crying. “He says, ‘You call.’ I said, ‘You call'”. Liang recalled on the witness stand.
Meanwhile, Gurley’s girlfriend Melissa Butler, who he’d been visiting in the building, was shrieking over his body and can be overheard in a 911 call that was played for the court during the trial.
Liang then radioed for an ambulance, but he acknowledged not helping Gurley’s girlfriend try to revive him.
Prosecutors questioned that decision and sought to show that he had been trained in handling firearms and unexpected, risky situations.
NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 11: New York City police officer Peter Liang is escorted out of court after he was charged with manslaughter, official misconduct and other offenses on February 11, 2015 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
Gurley, too, was black.
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New York City’s mayor says he hopes a jury’s verdict brings closure to the family of a man who was fatally shot by a New York City police officer in a public housing stairwell.
