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Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron said he was told the man who was killed was visiting friends at the Pink Houses at the time of the incident. Barron called the shooting unjustified.
“So here’s an unarmed, black 28 year old in the stairwell. Two officers, one Asian, one white, fully armed. He’s unarmed, they meet on the stairwell and he winds up dead with a bullet in his chest,” Barron said. “How do you justify that? What could have happened?”
Barron is now demanding answers as to what happened.
“Tell us right away what happened and then if these officers are wrong, then they should be fully, fully punished by the fullest extent of the law,” he said.
choices.. decisions..The victim did not live in the building and left the apartment with his girlfriend, shortly after 11 p.m. The two initially went to the elevator but it was taking too long so they decided to take the stairs.
tjohunkin;7558547 said:East Coast lost again?
but seriously, as black men we need to start doing something.
Might as well die fighting instead of doing nothing
'Nervous' rookie NYPD officer fatally shoots unarmed 28-year-old man in Brooklyn's Pink Houses project
A “nervous” rookie cop fatally shot an unarmed man without a word of warning in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project late Thursday, a police source said.
The victim’s helpless girlfriend recounted Friday how she was left to watch Akai Gurley die after the single gunshot tore into his chest without so much as a word of warning.
Officer Peter Liang, who fired the fatal shot, “heard a noise,” a police source told the Daily News. “It was dark. He must have been nervous.”
Gurley, 28, had just entered the stairwell near his steady sweetheart’s seventh floor apartment at about 11:15 p.m. when Liang fatally shot him in the chest, said the source and the girlfriend.
“I shot him accidentally,” Liang told colleagues afterward. His partner partner never fired his gun, the source said.
Devastated gal pal Melissa Butler, with tears pouring down her face Friday morning, said the officer coming downstairs from the eighth floor blasted Gurley without explanation.
The only sound was the deafening echo of the gunshot in the stairwell at the Pink Houses.
“They didn’t identify themselves,” said Butler, 27, who began dating Gurley in January 2011. “No nothing. They didn’t give no explanation. They just pulled a gun and shot him in the chest.”
The terrified couple ran down to the fifth floor before Gurley collapsed in a pool of blood. Butler, who was standing alongside her boyfriend when he was hit, recalled their frantic final moments together as she begged Gurley to keep fighting.
“Yo, you OK? Talk to me!” she recalled shouting. “He wasn’t saying nothing. That was the last thing I said to him.”
Butler said the officers never came down to check on the mortally wounded man, and medical help was only sent after she banged on a neighbor’s door for help.
“She opened the door and said, ‘Yo, is somebody hurt?’” recounted Butler, holding a damp washcloth over her red and swollen eyes. “I said, ‘Yeah, my boyfriend.’”
Gurley died at Brookdale University Hospital shortly after his arrival by ambulance, police said.
Local politician Charles Barron condemned the shooting as an outrage.
“They didn’t find a gun,” said the state assemblyman-elect. “And believe me, if he had anything, if he had a slingshot, they would have put that in the report. This is incredible.
“I want to hear the justification for this one.”
Just a short time earlier, Butler had braided her boyfriend’s hair inside her apartment. She said the slain man lived with his 2-year-old daughter in Red Hook, and was just about to start working for the city.
The NYPD, in a press release, said the two uniformed officers were on a vertical patrol in the building when they came down the stairs at about 11:15 p.m.
One of the officers fired a single shot, but further information was not provided. It unclear why the officer fired, and a police source said Gurley was not armed.
The NYPD press release described the stairwell as “dimly lit.”
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was expected to brief the media about the shooting at an 11:30 p.m. press conference at police headquarters in Manhattan.
Both officers were taken to Jamaica Hospital for treatment of tinnitus.
A “nervous” rookie cop fatally shot an unarmed man without a word of warning in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project late Thursday, a police source said.
The victim’s helpless girlfriend recounted Friday how she was left to watch Akai Gurley die after the single gunshot tore into his chest without so much as a word of warning.
Officer Peter Liang, who fired the fatal shot, “heard a noise,” a police source told the Daily News. “It was dark. He must have been nervous.”
Gurley, 28, had just entered the stairwell near his steady sweetheart’s seventh floor apartment at about 11:15 p.m. when Liang fatally shot him in the chest, said the source and the girlfriend.
“I shot him accidentally,” Liang told colleagues afterward. His partner partner never fired his gun, the source said.
Devastated gal pal Melissa Butler, with tears pouring down her face Friday morning, said the officer coming downstairs from the eighth floor blasted Gurley without explanation.
The only sound was the deafening echo of the gunshot in the stairwell at the Pink Houses.
“They didn’t identify themselves,” said Butler, 27, who began dating Gurley in January 2011. “No nothing. They didn’t give no explanation. They just pulled a gun and shot him in the chest.”