Sentencing for Peter Liang

Former New York Police Department officer Peter Liang won’t spend a day in prison.

Liang, who was convicted in February of manslaughter and official misconduct in the shooting death of an unarmed black man in 2014, was sentenced Tuesday to five years of probation and community service after the judge in the case reduced his conviction from manslaughter to criminally negligent homicide moments before sentencing.

A New York jury had convicted Liang of manslaughter in February for killing Akai Gurley, who had walked into a housing complex stairwell. Liang was the first NYPD officer in more than a decade convicted of an on-duty killing. Critics of the verdict said Liang had been offered up as an Asian scapegoat though, for years, white officers had done worse, and gotten away with it.

During his trial jurors repeatedly asked to touch Liang’s gun, even pulling the trigger for themselves; Liang, who never confronted Gurley, had said his finger accidentally jerked the trigger when he was surprised by a loud sound.

Liang and his partner were patrolling the Louis H. Pink Houses in November 2014. The two opened a door to a dark and unlit stairwell on the eighth floor and Liang drew his gun. Liang said a loud noise surprised him and his gun accidentally fired. The bullet ricocheted and struck Gurley, who was walking down the stairs about a flight below with his girlfriend.

Liang later said he didn’t know anyone had been shot, so he and his partner, Shaun Landau, stepped outside into the hallway and debated who would call and tell their superior that the gun had been discharged. Meanwhile, Gurley had made it to the fifth-floor and lay bleeding. It was only when Liang stepped back into the stairwell to find the bullet that he and his partner heard Gurley’s cries. But even then, Liang didn’t offer help.

Liang had graduated from the police academy a year before. His partner would later testify that neither had received appropriate CPR training, and officials running the school had even fed them answers on the exam. Gurley’s girlfriend, who had to run for neighbors to ask for phone to call 911, performed CPR while an operator coached her. For that, Liang was charged with official misconduct. The rest of his charges included second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, second-degree assault, and reckless endangerment.

Liang faced 15 years in prison for the manslaughter charge, but there was little chance he’d receive such a harsh sentence. In March, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said it would not seek prison time for Liang, and instead asked he be sentenced to five years probation, with six months of home confinement. Of the recommendation, prosecutor Ken Thompson said that “from the beginning, this tragic case has always been about justice and not about revenge.”

It was not the news Gurley’s family wanted to hear. In a statement they released shorty after, the family said, “We are outraged at District Attorney Thompson’s inadequate sentencing recommendation. Officer Liang was convicted of manslaughter and should serve time in prison for his crime. This sentencing recommendation sends the message that police officers who kill people should not face serious consequences.”

Gurley’s death came just four months after the death of Eric Garner, another unarmed black man killed by police (though no one was  charged in that instance). And the case came after a year when police shootings of unarmed black men led to protests in cities across the U.S.––in Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, Chicago and New York.