N.Y. policeman convicted of manslaughter in shooting of black man: media

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

A New York City police officer 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.

A jury in Brooklyn found Peter Liang guilty in connection with the death of Akai Gurley, 28, who was killed by a bullet fired from Liang's gun on Nov. 20, 2014, that ricocheted off a wall.

Liang, a rookie cop at the time, was on patrol inside a Brooklyn public housing project with his partner and drew his gun upon entering a pitch-black stairwell.

He fired a single bullet that caromed off a wall and into the chest of Gurley, who was walking one floor below.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-police-idUSKCN0VL01X

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World | Thu Feb 11, 2016 7:47pm EST
NEW YORK | BY JOSEPH AX

[secondwind]

1. This was unintentional.. don't understand the verdict.

[Nye Bevan]

3. Isn't manslaughter usually unintentional?

If it was intentional it would have been murder. He wasn't even supposed to have his finger on the trigger, let alone actually fire a bullet. When someone is this reckless and stupid a verdict of manslaughter is appropriate.

[NutmegYankee]

4. Some localities call this charge "Negligent Homicide".

And walking with finger on trigger in a dark stairwell and firing a round is clearly negligent. It's also homicide because a man was killed by that negligence.

[LiberalElite]

5. I'm not sure which level of manslaughter they charged him with but

the verdict seems right to me. I've read that it's stressful to do a so-called "vertical patrol" in the projects, of course more so in the dark, but if he was so nervous he had to patrol gun in hand I don't think he should be a cop in the first place. Of course with this verdict, he won't be a cop anymore anyway.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

2. Change I can believe in!

Get the bad cops off the street