Ex-NYPD officer Peter Liang will not serve time behind bars for fatally shooting an innocent, unarmed black man in 2014 in a case that has drawn the attention of both Asian American and African American protesters.
A Brooklyn judge sentenced Liang to five years of probation and 800 hours of community service on Tuesday, saying the rookie cop never intended to shoot — let alone kill — Akai Gurley while patrolling a dark stairwell in a Brooklyn housing project.
Liang was convicted in February of manslaughter and official misconduct for firing a shot that ricocheted off a wall and struck Gurley in the heart, but Judge Danny Chun on Tuesday reduced the manslaughter charge to criminally negligent homicide.
Liang had said he was startled by a loud noise, and his attorneys requested the downgraded charge, saying prosecutors hadn't proved Liang intentionally created a risk.
"Shooting that gun and killing someone was probably the last thing in his mind and probably never entered his mind at all," Chun said. "This was not an intentional act. … There's no evidence, either direct or circumstantial, that the defendant was aware of Akai Gurley's presence."
Liang originally faced up to 15 years in prison, but a Brooklyn prosecutor requested before Tuesday’s sentencing that Liang receive no jail time.
The case had brought heated emotions from African American activists who wanted accountability for Gurley’s death and from Asian Americans who felt that Liang was being scapegoated because of his Chinese American ancestry.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-liang-sentencing-20160419-story.html
If he had been white, he probably would have been sent away for life....