A chinaman\'s Chance for Equal Justice

A Chinaman’s Chance for equal justice

According to Wikipedia, a Chinaman’s chance means little or no chance at all. In historical context of the phrase comes from the old railroad and gold rush days of California, where many Chinese were sought out for the demanding and dangerous jobs involving explosives, often for half the pay of the Mexican workers. Today, it makes me think of the fate of NYPD officer Peter Liang.

Rookie police officer Peter Liang and his partner rookie officer Shaun Landau were conducting a vertical patrol on Nov. 20, 2014, inside the Louis H. Pink Houses owned by New York Housing authority. At one point, while inside a pitch dark stairwell Liang’s gun accidentally discharged. The ricocheted bullet hit Akai Gurley, who was floors below them.

The death of Mr. Gurley was a tragic accident. The circumstance was very similar to the death of Timothy Stansbury Jr in the year 2004. In 2004, Officer Neri, a twelve-year veteran, was not indicted and continued his employment with NYPD. However, in 2014, Liang, a rookie, was indicted and convicted of five counts of charges including second-degree manslaughter.

There are many things went wrong in that unfortunate night of Nov 20, 2014.

The Pink house owned by New York Housing Authority has no lights in the stairwell. There are many accidents happened in those dark stairwells and many more waiting to happen.  I wonder how many more unlit stairwells are there inside New York Housing Authority owned properties. How many more people have to die before New York Housing Authority would change the light bulb?

The brass of NYPD sent two rookies to a dangerous area for vertical patrol. Apparently those rookies did not receive adequate training before they were assigned to such task. I am not trying to tell NYPD how to assign tasks to their officers but common sense tells me one would assign rookie with some seasoned officer.

Among over one hundred cases of the NYPD involved civilian death, this is one of four cases prosecuted. I am particularly disturbed that the prosecuting attorney made a closing argument to the jury implying that this shooting was deliberate and that Police Officer Liang pointed his gun at the victim- when none of the facts raised in the trial supported such an argument. Such highly prejudicial and inflammatory argument should not even be allowed in any case.

The system has failed both Mr. Gurley and Mr. Liang. It is unfortunate that Mr. Gurley cannot be resurrected. For officer Liang, there is still chance to hope for true equal justice if we are willing to ask the hard questions. But is that chance a Chinaman’s chance after all?