Protesters call for arrest of rookie cop who shot Akai Gurley as victim’s sister says he didn’t deserve to die
About 200 demonstrators gathered Saturday night at the NYPD’s 75th precinct stationhouse, chanting and comparing the NYPD to the Ku Klux Klan. The march came hours after Akisha Pringle said her brother ‘was killed for no apparent reason at all.’
A sea of angry demonstrators marched to the NYPD’s 75th precinct stationhouse Saturday night demanding the arrest of the rookie cop who shot to death an unarmed man in Brooklyn.
Roughly 200 protesters massed outside the stationhouse pelting officers with chants comparing the NYPD to the Ku Klux Klan.
“NYPD, KKK, how many kids you kill today?” the demonstrators chanted.
Rep. Charles Barron, hollering into a microphone, whipped the crowd into an emotional frenzy.
But there were no outbreaks of violence.
“Killer cops must go,” Barron shouted. “Shut this city down!”
Some protesters showed solidarity with those demonstrating in the Missouri town of Ferguson, where a grand jury is weighing charges against the police officer who shot Michael Brown.
At one point, a group of demonstrators unfurled a banner that read — “IF THE KILLER COP WALKS AMERIKKKA HALTS!”
The march came hours after the sister of victim Akai Gurley, 28, said her slain brother didn’t deserve to die.
“All he is, is an innocent guy walking down the stairs who was killed for no apparent reason at all, going home to his baby mother and his kids,” Akisha Pringle, 18, said at the Harlem headquarters of the National Action Network.
Pringle described Gurley, who’s been arrested more than two dozen times, as “very giving, very kind.”
A police source told the Daily News that Liang was holding his Glock 9-mm. pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Liang, who joined the force in July 2013, had just entered the pitch-black stairwell on the eighth floor when his gun accidentally discharged, police said.
Gurley was 14 steps away from Liang when a bullet — possibly a ricochet — tore through his chest. Gurley, who was with gal pal Melissa Butler, 27, ran from the seventh floor down to the fifth floor, where he collapsed.
Liang’s partner, Officer Shaun Landau, didn’t fire
“Whatever he’s done in his past, that doesn’t justify what happened to him that night,” she said.
Probationary Officer Peter Liang was one of two cops conducting a vertical patrol inside a building at the Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, at about 11:15 p.m.
“I’ll never be able to see him again, kiss or hug him again,” Gurley’s sister said. “That hurts me, and I know it hurts my mother.”
At one point, the Rev. Al Sharpton brought Gurley’s 2-year-old daughter to the microphone. Sharpton said little Akaila had something to say, but she didn’t part her lips.
“She told us she wanted to say she loved her daddy,” Sharpton said.
The fired-up reverend called for a complete investigation.
A police source said no decision has been made yet whether to fire Liang, who remains on modified duty — stripped of his badge and gun. Probationary officers can be canned without a departmental hearing.
“The Police Department must deal with its training, must deal with its procedures,” he said. “The (Brooklyn) district attorney must deal with a thorough investigation.”
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