A rookie officer shot, killed an unarmed man, 28 in a stairwell of a housing project in what New York’s top cop said Friday was “a very unfortunate tragedy … involving an accidental discharge.”
The victim, Akai Gurley, was a “a total innocent who just happened” to run into Officer Peter Liang in a “pitch black” stairwell at the Louis H. Pink Houses in Brooklyn , New York Police Commissioner William Bratton told reporters.
Gurley died at a hospital later after suffering one gunshot wound to the chest.
Liang, with less than 18 months on the job and on probationary status has been stripped of his gun and badge pending an investigation.
“A life was lost and my heart goes out to the family of the young man,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “It does appear to have been an accident.”
