Akai Gurley, 28, was unarmed when police fatally shot him Thursday night. The officer who pulled the trigger was indicted Tuesday, according to NY1. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp and Explore Talent 
 
 BROOKLYN — The rookie NYPD officer who fatally shot an unarmed man inside a Pink Houses stairwell in November has been indicted by a Brooklyn grand jury. 
 
 Officer Peter Liang has been charged with manslaughter in the second degree for his role in the Nov. 20 shooting death of Akai Gurley, 28, who was visiting his girlfriend inside 2724 Linden Boulevard when he was killed in a pitch-black stairwell, according to sources. 
 
 Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Liang's gun was "accidentally discharged" and called Gurley a "total innocent." 
 
 It wasn't immediately clear what charges Liang faces. He is expected to turn himself in Wednesday at 2 p.m., sources said. 
 
 Liang was conducting a vertical patrol with his gun drawn when he fired a single shot from a landing above the seventh floor, striking Gurley in the chest, the NYPD said. 
 
 "This officer deserves the same due process afforded to anyone involved in the accidental death of another," Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch said. "The fact the he was assigned to patrol one most dangerous housing projects in New York City must be considered among the circumstances of this tragic accident." 
 
 Liang's lawyer decided not to allow him to testify before the grand jury, and sources speculated that decision was based on his inexperience and it would be wise to tell his story one time if he was indicted. 
 
 Gurley’s girlfriend, Melissa Butler, 27, told DNAinfo New York immediately after the shooting that the officers never identified themselves. 
 
 “They didn’t present themselves or nothing and shot him,” she said. “They didn’t identify themselves at all. They just shot.” 
 
 Liang declined to comment when reached on his cellphone. 
 
 "This is a first step in getting justice for the reckless shooting and wrongful death of Akai Gurley," said Scott Rynecki, an attorney for Kimberly Ballinger, the domestic partner of the slain man. 
 
 Officers from Liang’s unit had been told to focus on exterior patrols following a spate of shootings in the housing complex, so it was unclear why Liang was performing a vertical patrol. 
 
 Weeks later, Gurley’s mother, Sylvia Palmer, said her son had been planning a surprise trip to visit her in Florida for Thanksgiving before he was killed. 
 
 “I pray to God that I get justice for my son,” she said. “Because my son didn’t deserve to die like that.” 
 
 Liang is the second NYPD officer to be indicted in a week. 
 
 Officer Joel Edouard, 37, surrendered on Feb. 3 after he was caught on video stomping a marijuana suspect’s head. He was indicted on charges of assault and official misconduct. 
 
 "I'm happy to see this indictment happen," said Kevin Powell, the spokesman for Gurley's family. "It won’t be full justice unless he's actually convicted of the killing of Akai Gurley. We've seen this before where officers are indicted but there’s no conviction." 
 
 Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was blasted by police unions for statements he made in the wake of a Staten Island grand jury's decision not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo for Eric Garner's death, released a more subdued message Tuesday. 
 
 "It has been reported that a Brooklyn grand jury has acted in this case," the mayor 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." 
 
 The indictment was first reported by NY1. ||||| 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 ||||| 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. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Brooklyn district attorney said on Friday that he planned to impanel a grand jury to look into the death of Akai Gurley, an unarmed Brooklyn man who was killed last month by a police officer patrolling a public-housing unit. 
 
 With protests continuing over the grand jury decisions not to charge the officers who killed Eric Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the tension around the Gurley case has also risen. Mr. Gurley was black, as were Mr. Garner and Mr. Brown. The officers in the Garner and Brown cases are white; the officer who shot Mr. Gurley, Peter Liang, is Asian-American. 
 
 The district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, said in a statement that he did not support the appointment of an independent prosecutor to handle the case, saying he had been elected by Brooklyn’s residents to represent their interests. “It is important to get to the bottom of what happened,” he said. 
 
 Mr. Thompson added, at an event on Friday, that prosecutors had not completed their investigation, so the timing for the grand jury was not yet clear. 
 
 Mr. Thompson has not said what charge or charges he might ask the grand jury to consider. 
 
 Mr. Gurley, 28, was killed Nov. 20 as he walked in a dark stairwell in the Louis H. Pink Houses in the East New York neighborhood, his girlfriend at his side. The elevators in the building often malfunctioned and residents often used the stairs instead, even though the lights in the stairwells were frequently out, as they were that night. 
 
 Officer Liang, 27, was conducting a so-called vertical patrol with his partner, starting on the roof and heading down through the stairwells, a common procedure for officers assigned to housing projects. Officer Liang had his gun out and opened the door to a stairwell; the gun went off, authorities said, as Mr. Gurley entered the stairwell one floor below. 
 
 The police commissioner, William J. Bratton, characterized the shooting as “an unfortunate accident.” 
 
 While there were immediate calls for criminal charges for the officers who killed Mr. Garner and Mr. Brown, opinions about the Gurley case were varied. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who called for protests in the earlier cases, said he “didn’t know” whether an indictment was appropriate for Officer Liang. 
 
 “There has to be a full investigation,” Mr. Sharpton said, cautioning that supporters of the officer “should not rush to judgment and say it is an accident when they don’t know what happened.” 
 
 United States Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn, said Mr. Thompson’s decision was “a meaningful step in the right direction.” 
 
 “Akai Gurley did not deserve to die,” he said, “and the evidence of a kill shot that penetrated his chest and struck him in the heart suggests something more than a noncriminal accident.” 
 
 A similar shooting occurred in January 2004, when Timothy Stansbury Jr., 19, was killed on a roof at the Louis Armstrong Houses in Brooklyn by Officer Richard S. Neri Jr. A grand jury declined to indict Officer Neri after he testified that he had unintentionally discharged his weapon after Mr. Stansbury pushed open a rooftop door, startling him. 
 
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 Given what is known about the Gurley case, said Delores Jones-Brown, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who directs its Center on Race, Crime and Justice, it seemed likely that a jury would consider criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment charges. 
 
 A central question for the grand jury to consider, Professor Jones-Brown said, is “what police are trained and authorized to do in these kinds of situations.” If the police action goes against training and police guidelines, the next step would be to determine how much of the officer’s behavior had diverged from “the kind of care he should’ve been exercising,” she said. 
 
 The investigation into the shooting so far has covered the first minutes after the officer shot Mr. Gurley, a law enforcement official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about an ongoing case. Mr. Liang may have used his phone to send a text message during that period, the source said, The Daily News reported on Friday. 
 
 James P. O’Neill, chief of department and the highest ranking uniformed officer in the Police Department, declined to comment on Officer Liang’s actions. 
 
 “This is an ongoing investigation by our department and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office,” Chief O’Neill said. “I really can’t talk about it.” 
 
 The Daily News suggested that Officer Liang was texting a representative of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, although a spokesman for the union said that account did “not appear to be true.” Nonetheless, one police official said, it was not unusual for an on-duty officer to seek guidance from a union representative after firing a gun. 
 
 Mr. Jeffries said that in the Gurley case, he hoped a grand jury would vote for an indictment. 
 
 “That doesn’t necessarily mean a conviction, but it should mean an indictment that allows the facts to be aired in a public trial,” he said. “When unarmed black men are killed by police officers, we need public trials to help restore confidence in the criminal justice system.”
– A rookie cop with the NYPD will face criminal charges after shooting an unarmed black man to death in a stairwell, reports the Wall Street Journal. A Brooklyn grand jury indicted Peter Liang, 27, on charges of second-degree manslaughter in the November shooting of Akai Gurley, 28, reports the Daily News. The charges essentially accuse Liang of acting recklessly, says the newspaper. Police have previously said that Liang's gun fired accidentally as he and a partner were patrolling a public housing complex and preparing to descend a dark staircase. The bullet struck Gurley, who was on a landing one floor below. “They didn’t present themselves or nothing and shot him,” Gurley's girlfriend, who lives in the building, told DNAInfo after the shooting. “They didn’t identify themselves at all. They just shot.” Liang, who has been on desk duty since the shooting, is expected to turn himself in tomorrow morning. The development follows the lack of indictments in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases. Those two deaths involved white officers, while Liang is Asian-American, notes the New York Times.