The Problematic Prosecution of an Asian American Police Officer: Notes From a Participant in People v. Peter Liang

Peter Liang is a former New York City Police Officer convictedof accidentally killing a twenty-eight-year-old African-Americanman, Akai Gurley in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project.On the evening of Thursday, November 20, 2014, Mr. Liang was arookie officer, 11 months out of the police academy. He and hispartner Shaun Landau, also a rookie, were on patrol in the LouisPink Houses, a public housing project built by Robert Moses inEast New York, Brooklyn. They were pulling, a mandatoryovertime shift ordered because of recent shootings in the Pink Houses. This was only their second time patrolling the PinkHouses.Officers Liang and Landau went to the eighth floor, the topfloor, of the building at 2724 Linden Boulevard to do "floor checks,"a technique where officers patrol at the stairwell and each floor ofa building.

Sometimes this technique is called "vertical patrol." Inthis building, there were two stairwells. One was lit; in the other,the lights were broken, so the stairwell was completely black. Theofficers decided to check the dark stairwell. Officer Liang removedhis pistol from his holster, as is authorized by NYPD policy, andheld his flashlight in his other hand.

He looked through a portholein the door but could not hear or see anything on the other side.He opened the door to the eighth floor stairwell with his shoulder,looking up the stairs toward the roof. He heard a noise from theseventh floor stairwell and involuntarily discharged his pistol, a9mm Glock. His pistol was pointed downward, toward the ground,as he was trained. In a freak accident, the bullet travelled downthe staircase between the seventh and eighth floors, hit andricocheted off the wall of the stairway, and struck Mr. Gurley inthe heart.

The wound was immediately fatal.