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No prison time for NYPD officer in stairwell shooting case

 
Peter Liang, 28, said he fired his gun by accident. The ricochet killed a man in a stairway.
Peter Liang, 28, said he fired his gun by accident. The ricochet killed a man in a stairway.
Published April 20, 2016

NEW YORK — A former police officer who shot an unarmed man to death in a darkened stairwell was spared prison time Tuesday, and a judge reduced his manslaughter conviction to a lesser charge in a case that became a flashpoint for police accountability.

Peter Liang was sentenced to five years' probation and 800 hours of community service in the 2014 shooting of Akai Gurley, who was walking down a public housing stairway when Liang, a rookie officer, fired a bullet into the dark — by accident after being startled, he said. The bullet ricocheted and killed Gurley, 28.

Speaking softly, Liang told the court he never meant to fire and apologized to Gurley's family.

"My life is forever changed," he added. "I hope you give me a chance to rebuild it."

Liang, 28, is the first New York City police officer convicted in an on-duty shooting in 11 years. A jury found him guilty this winter of a manslaughter charge carrying up to 15 years in prison.

But Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun reduced the offense Tuesday to criminally negligent homicide, which carries up to four years in prison. He said prosecutors hadn't met the legal burden for the manslaughter charge: proving that Liang consciously disregarded a substantial, unjustifiable risk of death.