November 20, 2014 was the last night of Akai Gurley’s life. He was a vibrant 28-year-old with a family and friends, who loved him, adored him. He should be alive today. Akai Gurley is dead today because he crossed paths with Peter Liang. Nobody, nobody here disputes that. In fact, Peter Liang himself has said so—more than once. Here’s what happened.
[That night] Peter Liang, a trained police officer, violated key, critical, life-and-death training, and recklessly pulled out his gun, fired it for no reason and pumped out a bullet that hit the wall inches from where Akai Gurley stood, and then ripped into Akai Gurley’s chest. It tore through his heart and landed in his liver. Then, instead of doing all that he could to help Akai Gurley, he wasted precious time arguing with his partner about calling for help. In fact, instead of calling for help, he just stood there—whined and moaned about how he would get fired.
That night, Akai Gurley went to the Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, to visit his friend, Melissa Butler. She lived at 2724 Linden Boulevard. During his last visit, they joked, laughed and watched television. Melissa braided Akai’s hair, as she had done plenty of times before. Before they knew it, it was 11 p.m. and Akai decided to leave.
As fate would have it, that night at around 11 p.m., just as Akai was leaving, two housing police officers … came into 2724 Linden Boulevard. They were Peter Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau. Liang and Landau caught an elevator … to the 8th floor … and they walked to the stairwell. Akai and Melissa … tired of waiting for the [7th floor] elevator … also headed down the stairwell. The lights in the stairwell were out on both the 8th and 7th floor landings. [T]his wasn’t anything new … so they didn’t pay it much mind.
[S]uddenly … Peter Liang, with a flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other, bursts into the stairwell on the 8th floor, turned left, pulled the gun’s trigger and fired a shot down towards the 7th floor. Just as he burst into that the stairwell gun in hand with his finger on the trigger, Melissa Butler and Akai Gurley walked into… [the 7th floor] stairwell they had every right to be in.
Melissa Butler … and Akai knew their lives were in danger and ran down the stairs as fast as they could. They made it to the 6th floor, they made it to the 5th floor, but when Melissa Butler reached the 4th floor, she realized Akai wasn’t right behind her anymore. He didn’t keep up. He couldn’t keep up. Instead, he collapsed on the cold 5th floor landing in the stairwell in the Pink Houses.
Melissa Butler did everything she could to save Akai. [S]he ran frantically to the 4th floor right below and banged on her neighbor’s [Melissa Lopez] door. Melissa Lopez … called 911 immediately. Grabbed towels … went into the stairwell with her phone and shouted CPR instructions to Melissa Butler.
[That night] Peter Liang broke rule after rule after rule. In the police academy, it’s drilled into every officer’s head not to put his or her finger on the trigger unless that officer is ready to shoot. [I]t’s obvious—guns are uniquely lethal, but they can’t be fired unless somebody pulls the trigger.
But there’s more. After Liang fired the shot that killed Akai Gurley, his partner … urged him to call it in over the police radio. But Peter Liang … refused. Remarkably, Liang and Landau argued for minutes … [w]hile floors beneath them, these two Melissas … did everything they could to save the man Peter Liang had killed.
Liang and Landau finally … got to the 5th floor landing, they saw Melissa Butler on her knees doing CPR on Akai Gurley, covered in blood, and crying. But neither of them took CPR from Melissa Butler, despite the fact they were carefully trained at CPR. Eventually, well after he should have, Liang made this weak ineffectual radio call, but nothing that came close to what was required … to provide information about what was going on as Akai Gurley’s life slipped away.
[T]he gun Peter Liang killed Akai Gurley with … was a police-issued 9mm semi-automatic weapon. During this trial, you’re going to learn that the police department modifies its 9mm guns before they provide them to police officers. What does that mean? First, the gun that Peter Liang killed Akai Gurley with worked correctly. Second, the [NYPD] inserts a trigger into all of its service 9mm guns [to] make police weapons more difficult to shoot … to prevent officers from shooting their guns accidentally. Third, the only reason why Peter Liang’s weapon fired is because he pulled the trigger.
So despite the special NYPD trigger, despite all the special training he had gotten about keeping your fingers off the weapon’s trigger, despite the common sense that each of us has about handling weapons carefully … none of these precautions were enough to prevent this thoughtless officer from recklessly shooting and killing Akai Gurley.
And that is why we will prove he is guilty of manslaughter and all of the other charges that he faces. We’re going to prove it to you beyond a reasonable doubt.
The opening statement delivered by Assistant District Attorney Marc Fliedner, Chief, Civil Rights Bureau has been edited for space by the DA’s office.
