NYPD Pigs are @ it again.. A Pig/Officer Fatally Shoots Unarmed Brooklyn Man...

[stringer bell]

newsday.com/news/new-york/rookie-nypd-officer-peter-liang-fatally-shoots-totally-innocent-akai-gurley-top-cop-says-1.9641727

Rookie NYPD Officer Peter Liang fatally shoots 'totally innocent' Akai Gurley, top cop says

A rookie police officer walking with his gun drawn in a darkened stairwell of a crime-ridden public housing complex accidentally shot and killed a man who was leaving the building with his girlfriend, authorities said Friday.

"What happened last night was a very unfortunate tragedy," Police Commissioner William Bratton said at a news conference. "The deceased is totally innocent. He just happened to be in the hallway. He was not engaged in any criminal activity."

The shooting of Akai Gurley, 28, occurred at about 11 p.m. Thursday as Officer Peter Liang, 26, and another rookie officer patrolled the Louis Pink Houses in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. The New York Police Department assigns rookie officers as reinforcements in parts of the city that have seen increases in crime; the housing project where Gurley's girlfriend lived was the scene of a recent shooting, robberies and assaults.

The officers had descended onto an eighth-floor landing when Gurley and his girlfriend, after giving up their wait for a slow elevator, opened a door and walked onto the seventh-floor landing so he could head to the lobby. The lights were burned out in the stairwell, leaving it "pitch black" and prompting both officers to use flashlights, Bratton said.

Liang, for reasons unclear, also had his gun drawn, police said. The officer was about 10 feet from Gurley when, without a word and apparently by accident, he fired a single shot, police said. In general, officers have discretion on whether to draw their weapons based on what they are encountering or believe they may encounter, Bratton said.

The girlfriend, Melissa Butler, told the New York Daily News that she was walking him out of her seventh-floor apartment after braiding his hair when the shooting happened. She and Gurley made it down two flights of stairs after he was shot, but he collapsed on the fifth-floor landing and lost consciousness, she said.

Gurley was taken to a nearby hospital where he died, police said.

"He didn't do nothing wrong," Butler said. "He was just standing there and they shot him."

Gurley's stepfather, Kenneth Palmer, said officials called his family in Jacksonville, Florida, to notify it of the death.

"What's hitting me on the head right now is how it happened," Palmer told The Associated Press. "The mood I'm in is pissed off."

Police officials pieced together the details from radio reports and interviews with the girlfriend and the second officer, but they said they have not spoken to Liang. The officer must first be interviewed by the district attorney's office, which will decide whether to file criminal charges, before internal affairs officers can question him -- a standard policy.

The shooting comes at a time when the department is changing how rookie cops are used fresh out of the academy to give them more training and time with more senior officers. It also reinforced what some say are long-ignored maintenance problems in public housing, including poor lighting.

Public housing employees were walking around the buildings Friday with a shopping cart full of light strips and had fixed all the lights on the staircase.

Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said the complex is among the most dangerous in the city and that their stairwells are the most dangerous places in public housing.

"Dimly lit stairways and dilapidated conditions create fertile ground for violent crime while the constant presence of illegal firearms creates a dangerous and highly volatile environment for police officers and residents alike," Lynch said.

Charles Barron, a state assemblyman-elect whose district includes the complex, expressed doubt that the shooting was accidental.

"This young man should be alive today," he said. "This is ridiculous."

The shooting recalled a 2004 incident in which 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury was shot by a startled officer on a Brooklyn rooftop of a housing complex. His family got a $2 million settlement with the city.

 

[7figz]

Too pissed to even talk about this shit much anymore.

And to think some niggaz was actually capin' for these pieces of shit not too long ago.

 

[JusDre313]

@stringer bell.. im surprised they even admitted it being a accident and calling the deceased completely innocent... this shit so fucking infuriating

 

[stringer bell]

@stringer bell.. im surprised they even admitted it being a accident and calling the deceased completely innocent... this shit so fucking infuriating

I agree about that.. but that scumbag Police Union boss is already making excuses as usual.. And setting up defense for that coward pig...

 

[PapaDoc223]

new york niggas needa stop being so tolerant man..y'all got it worse than any of us when it come to police and that marching shit y'all do ain't working

Man if sean bell being shot at 50 times did not wake us up then nothing will man. Over here there is no leadership. No tradition like Oakland of defying cops. Thing is if we wanted to we could shut down the city. If every hood in the 5 borughs organized we could shut down the city. NYPD is the biggest criminal gang in the city and everybody is afraid of them.

 

[Elzo69Renaissance]

new york niggas needa stop being so tolerant man..y'all got it worse than any of us when it come to police and that marching shit y'all do ain't working

Man if sean bell being shot at 50 times did not wake us up then nothing will man. Over here there is no leadership. No tradition like Oakland of defying cops. Thing is if we wanted to we could shut down the city. If every hood in the 5 borughs organized we could shut down the city. NYPD is the biggest criminal gang in the city and everybody is afraid of them.

 

[stringer bell]

Burroughs agreed that the dark stairwell is a major safety problem.

“That staircase has been dark for a long time. NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) never makes the repairs that they need to, so it was dark,” she told Schuck. “They may have followed this young man into the building — I don’t know what the situation was, but how could they see what was going on? It’s dark from the roof down to the seventh floor.”

But New York State Assemblyman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) did not buy the claim that the shooting appeared to be accidental.

“That is a lie,” Barron said. “We believe he intentionally discharged his weapon because he’s inexperienced and he was frightened. Over what, we don’t know.”

Barron spoke with Gurley’s family and came to different conclusions than police.

“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,” he said.

Barron is now demanding answers as to what happened.

“I want to hear the justification for this one,” he said. “Don’t tell me the hallway was dimly lit. That’s no reason to kill a black man on a stairwell.”

Councilwoman Inez Barron (D-42nd) also disputed Bratton’s claims about where and when it is appropriate for officers to draw their guns. Protocol mandates that when officers are doing searches in stairwells, they should not have their guns drawn.

“What (NYPD Housing) Chief (Carlos) Gomez said on April 28 – which I’m sure all of you can Google and find in the City Council record – contradicts what Bratton said today,” she said.

Councilwoman Barron said NYCHA police safety protocol had changed after someone else was accidentally shot in 2004 under very similar circumstances.

 

[Ghostdenithegawd]

well from what y'all posted the cop admitted to his mistake can't sit here and call him racist this isnt like any of the other situations this man admitted to his fault

 

[taylornathaniel]

The same thing happen about 20 plus years ago where I lived in Gowanus projects. As youth, we use to play Tag in the building. One night we where playing tag and happen to play on the roof. A cop was patrolling the building and worked his way up to the roof. My childhood friend Nichols Heyward (Look it up) was coming off the roof, while the officer was going up towards the roof. Without identifying himself or saying freeze the police officer just shot and killed Nick. Fucking cowards with guns. Of course there's more to the story, which involves a toy gun, but nevertheless, the cop was a coward.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/29/nyregion/police-youths-and-toy-guns-1-hurt-1-dead.html

 

[stringer bell]

Smh this man left 2 yr kid behind...

 

[Chef_Taylor]

well from what y'all posted the cop admitted to his mistake can't sit here and call him racist this isnt like any of the other situations this man admitted to his fault

Man get the fuck outta here no one knew his intentions....but I know this wasnt no accident...honkey prolly had it in his mind to kill...wolf in sheep clothing...I will NEVER take a cop word for shit because they are protected and its their word against yours...no one knows the dead man's side of the story.

 

[JusDre313]

well from what y'all posted the cop admitted to his mistake can't sit here and call him racist this isnt like any of the other situations this man admitted to his fault

he didnt admit nothing the commissioner did, but that still doesnt change the fact a man is dead.. cops just cant say "well it was mistake" and we just shrug it off... one of the articles it even said it was unclear why the cops guns were even drawn. Did they say the race of the cop (i just assumed he was white, not going to lie)?

 

[jono]

This is bizarre. On one hand...I get it, accidents happen but on the other hand the story sounds a lot like a hit to me.

A cop patrolling an area where people are supposed to be is somehow startled by people being there?

Nah, doesn't sound kosher to me.

A ROOKIE, which by definition means he was new to the job, patrolling in the dark gets spooked and accidentally fires his weapon...it's plausible.

So I have mixed thoughts about this. You can't trust a cop' ms word for it so it's time for a thorough civilian investigation.

 

[Meta_Conscious]

Since when do cops patrol the projects with guns drawn?

 

[kzzl]

This Liang guy is the first cop I've ever read about to say it was an accident. If he's telling the truth, his actions from here on out should show it. But nothing short of taking his badge and compensating the family will suffice. The real racism will be if dude faces no consequences. He made too many mistakes as a law official that cost a man his life, this ain't the job for him.

nah the coward who killed Oscar Grant said it was an accident too..

there's no excuse for this..

if a cop (serve and protect) kills a person by accident he should be sentenced to 25-life on purpose

I already realize it's more likely that's not the case, so no argument there.

 

[stringer bell]

well from what y'all posted the cop admitted to his mistake can't sit here and call him racist this isnt like any of the other situations this man admitted to his fault

he didnt admit nothing the commissioner did, but that still doesnt change the fact a man is dead.. cops just cant say "well it was mistake" and we just shrug it off... one of the articles it even said it was unclear why the cops guns were even drawn. Did they say the race of the cop (i just assumed he was white, not going to lie)?

The pig is some kinda chink...

 

[K55N]

[/quote]

I agree about that.. but that scumbag Police Union boss is already making excuses as usual.. And setting up defense for that coward pig...[/quote]

Just playing devils advocate here but that's kinda what the Union rep is supposed to do . I dont agree with it but thats his job

 

[D0wn]

It's getting to be that the citizens are the ones that need the body camera's. just in case you get popped for no damn reason, you can at least have footage to tell your side of the story. Shit would get real, if the pigs knew 70% of the people they mess with may be mic'ed up. You can't expect them to have any accountability anyway, so why not. Besides, we record 99.97% of the all fights that take place involving black people and have a website that can sort them into chronological order or by year the nikes they were wearing were released and rank them by the dumb shit that happen after the fight on a scale of 1 to 10 (nite! nite!); so just add another category to that site. That shit may save a life.

Yea cause all these Footages of niggas getting assaulted ... ....

Do niggas think in 2014???

These cops dont give a fuck...

They use take a nigga in alleys and other quiet places, to do what they're now doing in the open... Infront of witnesses ....with fucking cameras.

Niggas need cameras.... Naw niggas need To strike back...

We get on each other for the pettiest shit but afraid to get a cop...

 

[MR.CJ]

Here we go again

 

[stringer bell]

https://twitter.com/funsizemela/status/535826718871654400
https://twitter.com/theonlyreed/status/535826331406462977