Melissa Butler, Akai Gurley's girlfriend, reads a statement in court during the sentencing of former police officer Peter Liang in New York, Tuesday, April 19, 2016. Liang, convicted in the accidental... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — A former police officer who shot an unarmed man to death in a darkened stairwell was spared prison time Tuesday, and a judge reduced his manslaughter conviction to a lesser charge in a case that became a flashpoint for police accountability. 
 
 Peter Liang was sentenced to five years' probation and 800 hours of community service in the 2014 shooting of Akai Gurley, who was walking down a public housing stairway when Liang, a rookie officer, fired a bullet into the dark — by accident, he said. The bullet ricocheted and killed Gurley, 28. 
 
 Speaking softly, Liang told the court he never meant to fire the gun and apologized to Gurley's family. 
 
 "My life is forever changed," he added. "I hope you give me a chance to rebuild it." 
 
 Liang, 28, is the first New York City police officer convicted in an on-duty shooting in 11 years. A jury found him guilty this winter of a manslaughter charge carrying up to 15 years in prison. 
 
 But Brooklyn state Supreme Court Chun reduced the offense Tuesday to criminally negligent homicide, which carries up to four years in prison. He said prosecutors hadn't met the legal burden for the manslaughter charge: proving that Liang consciously disregarded a substantial, unjustifiable risk of death. 
 
 And, the judge said, there was no need for time behind bars. 
 
 "Given the defendant's background and how remorseful he is, it would not be necessary to incarcerate the defendant to have a just sentence in this case," Chun said. 
 
 Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson had recommended against prison for Liang, but the prosecutor said Tuesday he would appeal the judge's decision to reduce the conviction. 
 
 The shooting happened in a year of debate nationwide about police killings of unarmed black men, and activists have looked to Liang's prosecution as a counterweight to cases in which grand juries have declined to indict officers, including those who killed Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York. Like Brown and Garner, Gurley was black. Liang is Chinese-American. 
 
 Gurley's family said Liang had been let off lightly. 
 
 "There's no justice. Akai Gurley's life does not matter. Black lives do not matter," said an aunt, Hertensia Petersen. 
 
 Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called Liang's sentence "a deeply troubling message that police officers convicted of killing unarmed African-Americans will be held to a different, and more lenient, standard of justice" than others. 
 
 Meanwhile, Liang's supporters say he has been made a scapegoat for past injustices. More than 10,000 of his backers rallied in New York and across the U.S. after the verdict, protesting his conviction. 
 
 Dozens of demonstrators representing both sides gathered Tuesday on opposite sides of the street outside the courthouse, separated by police barricades. Insides, both prosecutors and Liang's lawyers cautioned against using the case to make a larger point about police conduct. 
 
 "This simply is not a case of police brutality. This case features a reckless shooting by a rookie police officer in a darkened stairwell," Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Joe Alexis said. 
 
 But Gurley's loved ones reminded the judge of the toll. 
 
 "Because of the recklessness of that night, I'm without my partner, our daughter is without her father, a mom is without her son," said Gurley's domestic partner, Kim Ballinger. 
 
 Gurley's girlfriend, Melissa Butler, who was with him when he died, told Liang: "When you stole Akai's life, you stole mine as well." 
 
 Liang's missteps after the shooting were detailed during the trial, including his failure to aid the bleeding Gurley as Butler frantically performed CPR. Liang and his partner, who wasn't charged and testified during the trial, said they didn't help because they weren't well-trained. Their admissions prompted Police Commissioner William Bratton to launch an investigation into training. 
 
 Liang was fired after the verdict. So was his partner. 
 
 Liang's attorneys had sought to get the verdict tossed out based on a juror's failure to disclose his own father's criminal history before the trial, but the judge refused. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Tom Hays and Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report. ||||| A rookie cop who shot and killed an unarmed Brooklyn man in an unlit housing project staircase was indicted for manslaughter Tuesday, the Daily News has learned. 
 
 In a blockbuster grand jury decision, Peter Liang will face criminal charges that can send him to prison for up to 15 years for the death of Akai Gurley on Nov. 20, a source said. 
 
 The secret panel started hearing the case on Feb 4. A spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney declined to comment. 
 
 A source said Liang, 27, was indicted for a top count second-degree manslaughter, which means he acted recklessly. He was also charged with reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and official misconduct, another source said. 
 
 “I’m glad the grand jury looked at the evidence and returned an indictment,” Kimberly Ballinger, the victim’s domestic partner and mother of his 2-year-old daughter, told The News. 
 
 “I am happy, I have faith in the Brooklyn District Attorney and I thank him.” 
 
 Liang discharged one bullet when patrolling the stairways of the Pink Houses in East New York, striking the 28-year-old Gurley in the chest as the man stood in the landing a floor below next to his girlfriend. 
 
 The probationary officer, who’s been on the force for less than 18 months, was allegedly holding a flashlight in one hand and clutched a 9-mm Glock in his left hand, which he also used to open a door when the gun fired. 
 
 The News reported that Liang and his partner did not answer the radio in the six-plus minutes right after the shooting and instead texted their union delegates. 
 
 DA Kenneth Thompson had obtained indictments in recent months against three cops in two different incidents involving alleged assaults during arrests. 
 
 Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch called for due process. 
 
 “The fact the he was assigned to patrol one of the most dangerous housing projects in New York City must be considered among the circumstances of this tragic accident,” he said of the officer. 
 
 “I’m sad that he was indicted,” said Ed Mullins, President of the Sergeants Benevolent Association. "I don’t know exactly what transpired in that hallway, but I believe it’s a truly accidental incident.” 
 
 Gurley was struck on Nov. 20, 2014 at the Pink Houses in East New York. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News) 
 
 Liang is expected to turn himself in Wednesday morning ahead of his arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court. He will appear in front of Justice Danny Chun. 
 
 The Rev. Al Sharpton said he and Gurley’s relatives “are pleased that the process will now allow for a fair and impartial hearing.” 
 
 Ballinger had previously announced her intention to sue the city for $50 million. She, her lawyer Scott Rynecki and Sharpton all lavished praise on Thompson and the panelists. 
 
 “This is the first step in the fight for justice for this wrongful and reckless shooting,” Rynecki said. 
 
 “The effort to strengthen the relationship between the police and the community necessarily involves holding an officer accountable when an innocent life is taken and a law is broken,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “The indictment is a meaningful step in the right direction in the march toward justice for the family of Akai Gurley.” 
 
 Mayor de Blasio said: “No matter the specific charges, this case is an unspeakable tragedy for the Gurley family. We urge everyone to respect the judicial process as it unfolds." 
 
 Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins responded to news of the indictment, ‘I’m sad that he was indicted. I don’t know exactly what transpired in that hallway, but I believe it’s a truly accidental incident.’ (Bryan R. Smith) 
 
 The closely watched case came after grand juries in Missouri and Staten Island declined in recent months to file charges against police officers accused of killing unarmed black men. 
 
 The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner sparked a national protest movement and calls for reform. 
 
 In sharp contrast to the grand juries in those cases, which heard from dozens of witnesses over weeks, the panel that indicted Liang only heard evidence for a few days — the norm in nearly all grand jury proceedings. 
 
 In another distinction from the Garner case, where the officer accused of putting the father-of-six in a chokehold before he died testified in front of the grand jury, Liang did not take the stand, a source said. 
 
 “Unlike the case in Staten Island, this case shows the difference in a prosecutor who will respect the grand jury's role to decide probable cause, rather than attempt to influence it,” Sharpton said. 
 
 He disagreed with the characterization of the young officer as a scapegoat amid a charged, anti-police atmosphere. 
 
 “I don't think that he's a sacrificial lamb since a jury will decide his fate," Sharpton told the News. "If anything, Gurley was a sacrificial lamb in a program of vertical policing that we have strongly opposed." 
 
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 With Tina Moore, Rocco Parascandola, Jennifer Fermino
– Facing 15 years in prison on a manslaughter conviction, NYPD officer Peter Liang will avoid jail, instead getting six months of house arrest and five years of probation, NPR reports. Liang, 28, was convicted of killing Akai Gurley in 2014 when he was startled by a noise while patrolling a housing project and fired into a darkened stairwell. The bullet ricocheted off a wall and hit Gurley. On Tuesday, Judge Danny Chun reduced Liang's sentence to criminally negligent homicide. “Given the defendant’s background and how remorseful he is, it would not be necessary to incarcerate the defendant to have a just sentence," the AP quotes Chun as saying. The district attorney, who lobbied the judge to keep Liang out of prison, was upset by the switch to criminally negligent homicide and plans to appeal, the New York Daily News reports. The decision also angered Gurley's family—his aunt stormed out of the courtroom—and protesters outside. In addition to house arrest and probation, Liang, who says he hopes to rebuild his life, was sentenced to 800 hours of community service.