New York City police officer Peter Liang is escorted into court after he was charged with manslaughter, official misconduct and other offenses on February 11, 2015 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Here, Liang sits in court as testimony is read back for jurors during deliberations in Brooklyn Supreme Court this week. The judge barred any mention of those shootings in Liang’s trial.
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The last officer convicted in a killing in the line of duty was Brian Conroy.
Meanwhile, supporters of Liang are afraid the officer has been made a scapegoat for previous police killings of black men.
Some in the Chinese community, like Doug Lee, who founded the Greater New York Coalition to Support Officer Liang, felt that the officer’s indictment only came because of a climate of discontent with law enforcement. “In fact, instead of calling for help, he just stood there and whined and moaned about how he would get fired”.
The 28-year-old Liang said he fired by accident after a noise startled him. “This bad verdict will have a chilling effect on police officers across the city because it criminalizes a tragic accident”, Lynch said in a statement.
Speaking after the jury reached a verdict Thursday evening, Thompson said Officer Peter Liang’s trial “had nothing to do with Ferguson”, a reference to the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by an officer in Missouri. However, activists said it was about time that police are held accountable for using excessive force.
Prosecutors say Liang acted recklessly when he fired his service weapon. During the trial, prosecutors allowed jurors to pull the trigger of Liang’s Glock 9mm off to the side of the jury box.
But then, he said, he went to look for the bullet, heard cries and found the wounded Gurley and his distraught girlfriend.
It was only after descending the stairs, Liang said, that he realised the errant bullet had hit Gurley.
“I was panicking. I was in shock, in disbelief that someone was actually hit”, Liang said at trial.
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.
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“No matter what happened in the police academy with police training, you can rest assured Peter Liang, Shaun, and every other graduate of the academy was better equipped, better trained, and able to do the chest compressions Melissa Butler was forced to do while she knelt in [Gurley’s] blood and urine”, he said.
