A New York City police officer was indicted by a grand jury on February 10 for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in a darkened stairwell of a housing project last November, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Officer Peter Liang, alongside his partner, was patrolling the stairwell in the Louis H Pink Houses, a Brooklyn housing project on Novemver 20 last year.
While in the stairwell, Liang fired a single bullet, killing Akai Gurley, 28, who was in the stairwell a flight below with his girlfriend.
According to the New York Daily News, Deputy Inspector Miguel Iglesias had ordered his officers not to conduct such patrols and was furious upon hearing the officers had disobeyed his order.
Known as “vertical patrols”, they were the subject of a federal class-action lawsuit, which alleged residents of buildings belonging to the New York City Housing Authority were stopped by police without reasonable suspicion and in a racially discriminatory manner.
Reports emerged that instead of calling for help, Liang texted his union representative. Liang and his partner were out of contact for more than six-and-a-half minutes after Liang fired his gun. Only after communicating with his union, did Liang report the “accidental” discharge of his weapon.
Kenneth Montgomery, a lawyer for Gurley’s parents, said the officer's actions constituted “criminal negligence.”
The criminal charge or charges Liang will face were not immediately clear, the WSJ said.
The death of Gurley, who was black, followed other incidents of police involvement in the deaths of unarmed black men in New York and Missouri that sparked waves of national protests.
[Abridged from TeleSUR English.]
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