Brooklyn DA Won't Seek Prison For Peter Liang After Conviction in Akai Gurley Death
by Chris Fuchs
Mar 23 2016, 5:17 pm ET
The Brooklyn District Attorney is recommending that Peter Liang receive no jail time when he is sentenced in April for the shooting death of Akai Gurley.
In a statement received by NBC News Wednesday afternoon, Ken Thompson said he will ask Justice Danny Chun to sentence Liang, 28, to five years probation and require that he serve six months of home confinement with electronic monitoring. Thompson is also asking that Liang perform 500 hours of community service.
New York City Police officer (NYPD) Peter Liang reacts as the verdict is read during his trial in court room at the Brooklyn Supreme court in the Brooklyn borough of New York February 11, 2016. Mary Altaffer/Pool / Reuters
He added that there was no evidence Liang intended to kill or injure Gurley, 28, while conducting a vertical patrol of an unlit stairwell with his gun drawn in a Brooklyn housing project on Nov. 20, 2014.
"Mr. Liang has no prior criminal history and poses no future threat to public safety," Thompson said. "Because his incarceration is not necessary to protect the public, and due to the unique circumstances of this case, a prison sentence is not warranted."
RELATED: Former NYPD Cop Peter Liang's Guilty Verdict Leaves a Community Divided
Thompson's recommendation comes a little more than a week after Liang's new appeals attorneys filed a written motion to set aside his Feb. 11 conviction.
The 21-page memorandum of law, submitted by Paul Shechtman and Gabriel J. Chin, argues that Liang did not recklessly cause Gurley's death and that police procedures did not require Liang to administer CPR to Gurley, a procedure in which Liang's attorneys say the rookie officer was "grossly inadequately" trained.
"Although we disagree with Mr. Thompson on the fundamental issue of Peter's culpability, he deserves praise for his dispassionate and courageous decision that incarceration is not called for in this case," Shechtman said in a statement to NBC News.
New York City Police officer (NYPD) Peter Liang is led from the court room at the Brooklyn Supreme court in the Brooklyn borough of New York February 11, 2016. Liang was convicted of manslaughter and official misconduct on Thursday for fatally shooting an unarmed black man in a darkened public housing stairwell in 2014, according to media reports. BRENDAN MCDERMID / Reuters
Cathy Dang, executive director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, told NBC News she participated in a meeting attended by 14 people at the Brooklyn DA's office Wednesday afternoon about Liang's sentence recommendation, but said no one from Gurley's family was present. Officials, however, said Gurley's family had known about Thompson's recommendation before it was announced Wednesday.
Hertencia Petersen, Gurley's aunt, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Dang, whose organization has supported the Gurley family since the shooting, expressed disappointment over the recommendation of no jail time.
"Today, he [Thompson] just reinforced that we can continue to lose faith in our justice system that does wrong by all families who lose their family members to police violence," Dang said.
Liang testified at trial that the shooting was an accident. The bullet, fired from the eighth floor, ricocheted off a cement wall, striking Gurley who had entered with his friend Melissa Butler from the floor below. Butler tried resuscitating the 28 year old, who collapsed on the fifth-floor landing, based on instructions relayed to her through a neighbor who spoke by phone with an emergency medical dispatcher.
RELATED: Thousands Rally After Conviction of Ex-Cop Peter Liang in Death of Akai Gurley
"As I have said before, there are no winners here," Thompson said. "But the sentence that I have requested is just and fair under the circumstances of this case."
NBC News has contacted Liang's attorneys' for comment and will update this story if any is received.
Brooklyn DA Won't Seek Prison For Peter Liang
- Thread starter ahdsend
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Look at this c00n ass da who begging the judge for this
this is what happens when you got no economy...
he doesnt answer to black folks...
How does it get determined what cases the DA takes and which ones they dont?
fukking water head ass fakkit.
fukk you
fukk you
Wargames
One Of The Last Real Ones To Do It
Welp that DA is going to lose his damn job.
Where's my #blacklivesmatter peeps at
Where's my #blacklivesmatter peeps at
The DA itself.
Doing pirouettes in San FranWelp that DA is going to lose his damn job.
Where's my #blacklivesmatter peeps at
Neil Tyson
YYZ
Thousands of Asians rallied for white privilege and they got it, are they happy now?
Wargames
One Of The Last Real Ones To Do It
Doing pirouettes in San Fran
I need them to get back to work!!!
Kiyoshi-Dono
Veteran
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fukkin p*ssy
Isaiah Bradley
Banned
After another officer is acquitted, there reports of the increase in NOI membership, increase in financial support and membership in grassroot and national black agenda orgs, increase in voter registration, and increase in funds raised by think thanks and lobby groups that cater to black interest