New York – A New York City officer shot and killed an unarmed man in a dimly lit stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project, in what may have been an accidental discharge of his weapon, the police commissioner said on Friday.
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Akai Gurley, 28, was shot once in the chest and killed at about 11:00 p.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Thursday, Commissioner Bill Bratton said at a news conference.
“It appears to be an accidental discharge with no intention to strike anybody at this time,” Bratton said, adding that the deceased appeared to be “a total innocent,” based on a preliminary investigation.
Whether the shot was fired accidentally or deliberately is of significance due to heightened sensitivities in New York and across the country over the use of excessive force by police officers.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD Internal Affairs division were investigating the incident.
Officer Peter Liang, 27, and his partner, both rookies, encountered the man at the Louis H. Pink Houses in the East New York section of Brooklyn, Bratton said. The partner was not identified.
As the uniformed officer was descending from an eighth-floor landing in the stairwell, the man and a female companion entered at the seventh floor, the police said.
The officer’s weapon discharged a single shot, which struck the man in the chest, police said. The man, who did not live in the so-called Pink Houses, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police have not identified the woman, who was not injured.
The shooting comes just months after an unarmed black man died after being placed in a banned chokehold by officers who were attempting to arrest him for selling cigarettes on the street in the New York borough of Staten Island.
The incident touched off protests over the alleged mistreatment of minorities by New York City police, and fueled a national debate on police violence.
It was one of a series of explosive confrontations between police and unarmed suspects, including the August shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white officer. A grand jury is expected to decide as early as Friday whether to charge the officer in Brown’s death.
“accidental discharge”?
How well trained are these people? You don’t give a amateur a lethal weapon and then put him in urban environment….
No wonder everyone is fearful of cops. They either kill you on purpose or by accident Either way, they still get paid and retire with a fat pension.
The only way his striker-fired, semi-auto pistol could’ve “accidentally” discharged in this situation is if he accidentally pulled the trigger.
How could this not be negligent homicide, by definition?
The cop must be charged with criminally negligent homicide. They are supposed to be trained to have the safety on, when removing their automatic pistols, from their holsters. It is only to be released, if they intend to fire their weapons. Clearly, this rookie violated procedure, as the training which he received at the police academy, pertaining to firearm safety, appears to have been violated. If a civilian pulled the same stunt, he would have been charged with homicide, immediately. However, these cops literally get away with homicide.
A fender bender is an accident. This rookie was scared out of his wits, and clearly since he is still on probation will be thrown off the force without much Union interference.