A heavy police presence was visible outside of Brooklyn’s State Supreme Court, in the lobby, on the second floor and in Justice Danny K. Chun’s courtroom this past Monday and Tuesday as the rookie cop who shot and killed an unarmed 28-year-old Black man in an East New York public housing building more than a year ago finally faces charges. Peter Liang is charged with six counts, including second-degree manslaughter, which requires recklessness rather than intent; criminally negligent homicide; second-degree assault; reckless endangerment; and official misconduct. He could get 15 years if convicted.
“Akai Gurley is dead today because he crossed paths with Peter Liang, who is sitting here,” said prosecutor Marc J. Fliedner during his opening statement Monday morning.
A jury of seven men and five women heard arguments on both days. Apparently, eight jurors are Caucasian, three are Hispanic and one is African-American. The four alternate jurors appeared to be three Caucasians and one Hispanic. Supporters argue that this jury does not reflect the peers in the East New York, Brooklyn community where the killing occurred.
Fliedner said Liang “broke rule after rule while patrolling Brooklyn’s Pink Houses with his gun out and his finger on the trigger, and that recklessness cost an innocent man his life.” He added that Liang had been trained “not to put your finger on the trigger unless ready to shoot.” “He recklessly ignored that rule, and that’s why we are here today,” Fliedner accused.
The fatal shooting occurred Nov. 20, 2014, at approximately 11 p.m., when Gurley and Melissa Butler left her seventh floor apartment at of the Louis H. Pink Houses and took the stairs. Unbeknown to them, two NYPD officers, Liang and Shaun Landau, were doing a vertical patrol in the building.
The left-handed Liang raised his flashlight in his right hand and drew his pistol with his left, according to court testimony, as he opened the eighth floor stairway door with his shoulder. He turned and without warning, fired his gun into the darkness. The bullet struck Gurley in the chest and “tore through his heart,” the prosecutor said.
When the gunshot sounded, Gurley and Butler ran downstairs, with Gurley collapsing on the fifth floor landing. Butler noticed he had been shot and began knocking on doors seeking assistance. A neighbor called 911 at 11:14 p.m.
The two cops discovered Gurley on the fifth floor, with Butler crying and kneeling over him.
The neighbor, Melissa Lopez, was on the phone with EMS and relaying instructions to Butler on how to perform CPR.
Liang’s attorneys claim the shooting was a tragic accident that doesn’t amount to a crime, but prosecutors say the officer violated police procedures by having his gun drawn and his finger on the trigger, even though he wasn’t threatened.
As the first witness to be called Monday, Lopez recounted how she had been in her fourth floor apartment when the incident occurred. “I heard a single shot from the stairway, then a bang on my door,” she said. “The girl, she had blood on her, she was crying, asking for help, said her boyfriend was shot.”
Lopez described how she called 911 and rushed to the stairwell and saw Gurley lying on the fifth floor landing. “The cop shot him,” she said. “There’s like a million cops out here, but no ambulance.”
Lopez received instructions over the phone from an EMS dispatcher and relayed them to Butler, who she said “was alone.” “She needed help and they weren’t helping her,” Lopez testified
Instead of tending to the mortally wounded man, for four minutes the two officers debated over whether to tell their superiors about the shooting, and Liang worried about himself, prosecutors maintained.
He “stood there whining and moaning about how he could get fired,” Fliedner said. “None of them did CPR despite being trained. None checked if he was OK, if he had a pulse. He just shot an innocent man. Neither of them touched him, aided this dying man. Instead he (Liang) walked around him, still continued to bicker about calling it in to their supervisor.”
Landau and Liang went up to the eighth floor, arguing for several minutes as Gurley bled to death on the fifth floor, the prosecutor said.
Lopez’s frantic 911 call was played in court, and Butler could be heard screaming in the background, “He’s not breathing!”
Fliedner said, “You need to understand, there was nothing threatening. His partner’s gun stayed in his holster the whole time. Liang was issued a … 9mm semi-automatic weapon. You will learn that NYPD makes sure its guns are harder to shoot … Why? To prevent accidental shootings.”
Liang’s lawyer Rae Koshetz said,“His gun was out because he was heading to the roof, the most dangerous area of the building.”
Outside the courthouse Monday, Gurley’s family briefly addressed the press. “Peter Liang, you don’t live in public housing, but other people do,” said Mesha Joseph, a cousin. “Why would you have your gun out in a place where people live? Why were you scared in a place where people live? Scared enough to have your weapon drawn?”
Liang’s lawyer Robert Brown said Gurley’s death was a “tragic accident.” He added, “What [Liang] did doesn’t rise to the level of reckless manslaughter. Everything that’s wrong with policing in America is not on trial here.”
Liang claims, “it went off by accident.” But the prosecution argues that Liang was “in complete control of his gun,” noting that he was alone in the stairwell, that no one bumped into him, that he did not stumble and that the trigger of the weapon required a particularly high amount of pressure to pull. Officer Liang was at least acting recklessly, prosecutors argued, and a jury could find that he was responsible for pulling the trigger.
Tuesday, NYPD officers Salvatore Tramontana and Andrae Fernandez explained their findings upon arriving at 2724 Linden Blvd. that night. They also told how often they’ve drawn their guns in the line of duty.
Lopez’s husband, Miguel Rivera, testified that when he heard Liang tell his supervisor that he “accidentally shot” Gurley, he told his wife, “Let’s get out of here!”
A forensics expert explained what the traces of paint on the slug meant and how they got there as a result of the bullet traveling down a flight of stairs and ricocheting off a wall before imbedding in Gurley’s chest.
Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said, “In order to fire the gun, you need a certain amount of pressure to put on the gun,” suggesting he did not believe the shooting could be accidental.
Gurley’s relatives want justice. “My nephew’s murdered, but Peter Liang can come and go as he pleases?” commented Gurley’s aunt Hertencia Petersen. “Where was the justice for my nephew Akai in the stairwell that night? Where was the dignity and respect to Akai Gurley? There was none.”
Prosecutors showed a video of the narrow, dark stairwell, which had no working lights on the seventh and eighth floors, taken a few hours after the shooting.
A crime scene detective testified that the bullet ricocheted off the cinderblock wall of the seventh floor stairwell.
The case resumes Thursday. The judge told the jurors to expect deliberations to start on Feb. 8 or 9.
