NYPD Officer Convicted of Manslaughter in Death of Akai Gurley

But the conviction of NY police Officer Peter Liang for second-degree manslaughter of Akai Gurley in a darkened public housing stairwell draws a stark contrast to the prosecution of white police officers involved in the deaths of men of color around the country.

Liang, 28, was also found guilty of official misconduct for not helping Gurley after realizing he had shot the unarmed man. He was immediately fired by the NYPD. Gurley, an unarmed father, was walking up a dark stairwell in a Brooklyn apartment complex when he was shot by NYPD officer Peter Liang.

But an uncertainty remains: Brooklyn state Supreme Court Danny Chun has yet to rule on Liang’s lawyers’ request to dismiss the charges. Following the verdict, Liang was dismissed by the NYPD. He said that because officers can routinely find people with guns during such patrols, “it’s the reason that our members, like police officer Peter Liang, have weapons drawn while performing this job”.

The verdict came after 17 hours of jury deliberations that started Tuesday.

Defense attorneys said Liang was improperly trained and the shooting was accidental.

“The death of Akai Gurley was a tragedy”, Mayor de Blasio said in a statement.

Now the New York City police officer who shot him has been convicted of manslaughter, becoming the first cop convicted in an on-duty death since 2005. Prosecutors described Gurley as a “total innocent” in a press release following the conviction, calling Liang’s actions “reckless”. The bullet ricocheted off a wall and struck Gurley in the chest as he entered the stairwell on the floor below.

Two officers were shot earlier this month in a similar staircase to the one where Gurley was killed.

Meanwhile, supporters of Liang, who is Chinese-American, have said he has been made a scapegoat for past injustices.

Liang faces up to 15 years in prison when he’s sentenced in April.

Civil rights activists had already called for a demonstration on Friday at police headquarters regardless of the trial’s outcome.

“I was panicking. I was shocked”, Liang testified.

“I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone”, she said.

The family is demanding that the NYPD “permanently end all vertical patrols and stop using the NYPD as your security” and divert funds that they said paid for additional officers in 2016 to invest in “critical resources into real affordable housing for the working-class, community centers, and after-school programs”.

While Liang didn’t mean to hurt anybody, “Did his bullet take Gurley’s life?”

In New York, officers are rarely indicted by grand juries, let alone put on trial, for deaths that occur in the line of duty – no officer has been charged in the death of Mr. Garner in 2014.