NYPD Cop Indicted in Fatal Shooting

A rookie cop with the NYPD will face criminal charges after shooting an unarmed black man to death in a stairwell, reports the Wall Street Journal. A Brooklyn grand jury indicted Peter Liang, 27, on charges of second-degree manslaughter in the November shooting of Akai Gurley, 28, reports the Daily News. The charges essentially accuse Liang of acting recklessly, says the newspaper. Police have previously said that Liang's gun fired accidentally as he and a partner were patrolling a public housing complex and preparing to descend a dark staircase. The bullet struck Gurley, who was on a landing one floor below.

“They didn’t present themselves or nothing and shot him,” Gurley's girlfriend, who lives in the building, told DNAInfo after the shooting. “They didn’t identify themselves at all. They just shot.” Liang, who has been on desk duty since the shooting, is expected to turn himself in tomorrow morning. The development follows the lack of indictments in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases. Those two deaths involved white officers, while Liang is Asian-American, notes the New York Times. (More NYPD stories.)