SHOT IN THE DARK Cop accidentally kills man in stairwell left unlit for months — hours later lights were fixed ROOKIE COP Peter Liang – his gun drawn and his flashlight out – fired a fatal bullet into the chest of Akai Gurley (above) as he entered a darkened stairwell in a Brooklyn housing project late Thursday night. The cop’s gun apparently fired accidentally as he opened the door. The stairway lights had been dark for months, according to a source. A maintenance man fixed the bulbs Friday morning. A PANICKED rookie cop, fumbling with his weapon and a flashlight in a pitch-black housing project stairwell, killed an unarmed man with a single bullet to the chest. The shooting, described by cops as a tragic accident, happened during a vertical patrol late Thursday — months after sources say the superintendent of the Brooklyn development asked NYCHA to fix the stairwell lights. It wasn’t until Friday morning — hours after Akai Gurley was slain — that workers finally replaced the lights at the Pink Houses in Brooklyn. The helpless girlfriend of 28-year-old Gurley recounted watching him die in a puddle of blood after the routine police patrol turned into a horror show. “They need to pay for his funeral,” said Melissa Butler, 27. “They killed him. Ya’ll killed an innocent man.” Gurley was gunned down when probationary Officer r Peter Liang’s 9 mm. handgun accidentally discharged, with a bullet ricocheting off the wall and tearing into o the victim’s chest, t, sources said. A devastated Liang ng “was a crying mess,” a police source told thehe Daily News. “Breathingng heavy. He was sitting on the floor for 45 minutes.tes. Hewas a mess.” His partner, in a version of Thursday night’s ght’s events echoed by Mayor ayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, said the fatal shooting was a bizarre mistake. Liang clutched his Glock pistol in his left hand and a flashlight in his right when he entered the stairwell around 11:15 p.m. from the eighth floor. Liang “heard a noise,” the police source told The News. “It was dark. He must have been nervous.” Gurley and Butler, who had just finished braiding her boyfriend’s hair, only took the stairs because of a slow-moving elevator. They opened the seventh-floor stairwell door at about the same instant that Liang and his partner entered from one floor up. The cop and the doomed man were just 14 steps apart in the darkness. Liang was upstairs from Gurley when his gun accidentally fired as he opened the door, his partner Officer Shaun Landau told investigators. But it was unclear if the lefthanded Liang was holding the weapon in the same hand that he used to open the door. A mark on the stairwell wall indicates the bullet ricocheted before striking Gurley. It was the only bullet fired. The wounded man actually ran for his life after hearing the gunshot, and didn’t realize he was bleeding until collapsing on the fifth floor. “I shot him accidentally,” the devastated cop confessed to his colleagues. Landau never pulled his weapon from its holster. Bratton and de Blasio agreed the shooting was a terrible mistake — although Liang had yet to tell his story to police. “What happened last night was a very unfortunate tragedy,” Bratton said Friday. “It appears this may have been in fact an accidental discharge.” Bratton, along with de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray, visited Gurley’s family in Red Hook, Brooklyn, for about 10 minutes on Friday night. They didn’t speak to reporters, but Kirsten Foy of the National Action Network was inside the apartment during the meeting. Foy said the city’s top cop, the mayor and McCray hugged and kissed Kimberly Michelle Ballinger, a woman identified as Gurley’s “common-law wife” and the mother of his 2-year-old daughter. “They offered their apologies, condolences and support going forward, so she was heartened by that . . . grateful,” Foy said. “It was a very human moment forthem.” Devastated gal pal Butler, with tears pouring down her face earlier Friday, said Liang blasted Gurley without identifying himself or even addressing the couple. The only sound was the deafening echo of the gunshot in the stairwell at the Pink Houses. “They didn’t give no explanation. They didn’t identify themselves,” said Butler, who began dating Gurley in January 2011. “No nothing.” Butler, who was standing alongside her boyfriend when he was hit, recalled their frantic final moments together as she begged Gurley to keep fighting. “Yo, you OK? Talk to me!” she re recalled shouting. “H “He wasn’t saying n nothing. That was th the last thing I said to him.” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) angrily dismissed the official explanation of an accidental shooting. “The senseless killing of another unarmed African-American male by the NYPD should shock the conscience of all New Yorkers and the nation,” said Jeffries. “At this point, talk is cheap.” Gurley’s sister, along with the mother of his daughter, were slated to appear Saturday with the Rev. Al Sharpton. “I can’t believe my Big Bro is actually gone man,” his sister Akisha Pringle wrote on Facebook. “Just celebrated his 28th birthday a couple days ago. And now he gone.” Pringle said she received a 3 a.m. Friday call from Butler to break the painful news. Gurley, along with his daughter, was planning to leave on Friday for a Thanksgiving trip to Florida. the senseless killing of another unarmed africanamerican male by the NYPD should shock the conscience of all new Yorkers and the nation Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries “It was going to be a surprise for his mom because she hasn’t seen him in a while,” said Kenneth Palmer, the dead man’s stepfather. The 2-year-old girl asked her momon Friday afternoon why her father didn’t come to pick her up from day care. Liang, who joined the force in July 2013, was placed on modified duty after turning in his gun and shield. The Brooklyn district attorney and NYPD internal affairs were both investigating. As a probationary officer, Liang can be fired without a departmental hearing. Butler said the officers never came down to check on the mortally wounded man, and medical help was only sent after she banged on a neighbor’s door for help. “She opened the door and said, ‘Yo, is somebody hurt?’” Butler said, holding a damp washcloth over her red and swollen eyes. “I said, ‘Yeah, my boyfriend.’” Gurley died at Brookdale University Hospital shortly after his arrival by ambulance, police said. “They’re going to shoot him in the chest and walk away — like he was a dog!” said the girlfriend’s mother, 69-year-old Naomi Butler. It took the two officers a full five minutes after the first 911 call to report the shooting, backing the contention of sources that the two rookies were stunned and unsure what to do. The vertical patrols start on the roof of a building and continue down the stairwells to the ground floor in a sweep to keep buildings free of miscreants. “They are an essential part of policing, as essential in policing housing developments as the sector car in policing the street,” said Bratton. The commissioner acknowledged the shooting could produce one change: Pairing rookies with experienced cops instead of with each other. The darkness in the building stairwell endured despite a request made over the summer to upgrade the lights, sources familiar with the matter told The News. The sources said the request was made in July or August. NYCHA officials declined to comment.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 11:47:49 +0000
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