ZT Former NYPD Cop Peter Liang\'s Guilty Verdict Leaves a Commun

ZT 从警不足一年: 纽约华裔警官罪成, 情绪崩溃, 几近自残

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梁彼得在听到陪审团宣布罪名成立后，双手抱头，情绪激动。(路透)

梁彼得罪成！陪审团经过整整两天审议，11日晚终于向法官递交投票结果。在纽约市布碌仑政府楼巡逻时手枪走火误杀非洲裔青年格利(AkaiGurley)的华警梁彼得，包括二级误杀在内的五项控罪全部罪成，最高将面临15年牢狱。纽约市警在有罪裁决出炉后，立即宣布开除梁彼得。

2014年11月20日晚，从警不足一年的梁彼得与搭档在布碌仑政府楼楼梯间做“垂直巡逻”时，不慎手枪走火，打出子弹击中墙壁后，反弹恰好射中进入楼梯间的格利胸膛，致其重伤死亡。事发当时正值全美掀起反警示威高潮，非洲裔布碌仑地区检察官汤普森(KenThompson)将案件提交大陪审团后，大陪审团决定给予起诉。梁彼得被控二级误杀、二级攻击、二级疏忽致险、刑事疏忽杀人及渎职五项罪名，案件由布碌仑高等法院韩裔法官DannyChun主审。

梁彼得律师选择将案件交由陪审团审理，并从1月25日正式开审。经过两周听证、传唤超过20名证人、包括梁彼得本人亦走上证人席作证后，12名陪审员从10日起开始审议。庭审中辩方坚持此案纯属意外，绝非犯罪，而检方则坚称格利之死是由梁彼得一个接一个“疏忽鲁莽”(recklessness)的决定和行为所致。

“我把儿子交给纽约市、保护所有市民，今天他却被纽约法律背弃！他情绪已经完全崩溃，几近自残！”11日被判二级误杀等五项罪名均成立的梁彼得的妈妈透露，儿子对此判决毫无心理准备，整夜崩溃失魂，无法理会任何人事，甚至不想回家，几乎以自残面对这一不可接受的现实。梁妈妈表示，整晚都有媒体甚至示威的非洲裔在家门口，她虽感到无助，但会为儿子坚强。“我与儿媳两个女子对面痛哭很久，但我们不会放弃彼得！”

梁彼得被判罪名成立后，眼眶泛红离开法院。

据一直陪伴、保护梁彼得妈妈听审的布碌仑亚裔社团联合总会会长陈善庄介绍，当陪审团在庭上宣布五罪均成时，梁彼得已经掩面而泣，梁妈妈更是立刻全身发抖，两只手冰凉，均需紧握友人才能勉强站稳。“我一路将梁妈妈送回家，她一直在哭，完全没了主意，非常无助！”陈善庄回忆，梁彼得的妻子也第一时间打给婆婆，听到一声“输了”后，便崩溃大哭，撕心裂肺。“我也算见过不少场面了，但听到她们婆媳隔着手机痛哭时，自己都忍不住流泪。”

陈善庄表示，梁妈妈在车上还接了梁爸爸的电话，这个和儿子一样老实、低调的男人对于此结果只有无声的沉默。“梁爸爸是卖苦力的厨师，父子俩都是非常和善温顺的人，连脾气都不会发。”陈善庄透露，为了养家、支付律师费，梁爸爸一直无瑕陪儿子听审，知道结果的当下也是在工作岗位。“虽然他沉默以对，但其痛苦与无奈甚至能从呼吸中听出。”

ZT Former NYPD Cop Peter Liang's Guilty Verdict Leaves a Community Divided
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/former-nypd-cop-peter-liang-s-guilty-verdict-leaves-community-n518056

New York City Police officer (NYPD) Peter Liang is led from the court room at the Brooklyn Supreme court in the Brooklyn borough of New York February 11, 2016. Liang was convicted of manslaughter and official misconduct on Thursday for fatally shooting an unarmed black man in a darkened public housing stairwell in 2014, according to media reports. BRENDAN MCDERMID / Reuters

"IF LIANG WERE WHITE, HE WOULDN'T HAVE HAD AN ISSUE...THEY BULLY CHINESE. IT'S DISCRIMINATION."
A day after her son was convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting Akai Gurley, an unarmed man, in a Brooklyn housing project, Peter Liang's mother spoke publicly Friday afternoon for the first time since the verdict, saying her son blames himself for what happened that November night in 2014.

"He keeps banging his head against the wall," Fenny Liang said in Mandarin. "He said he wishes he was the one who had been struck and killed by the stray bullet."

Liang's mother spoke for about eight minutes during a press conference attended by roughly 100 Chinese supporters, many of them immigrants, at a restaurant in Brooklyn's Chinatown not far from Eighth Avenue. Wearing tinted sunglasses and dressed in black, she described how Peter Liang, who worked briefly as an agent for the Transportation Security Agency (TSA), wanted to become a police officer after graduating from college.

"This case has caused us to feel wronged," she said. "It has caused sorrow and has made us heartbroken." Overcome with emotion, Fenny Liang struggled to continue, prompting the audience to fill in her silence with the sound of applause.

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Peter Liang's mother, Fenny Liang, addresses supporters in Mandarin at a press conference, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, one day after her son, a former NYPD rookie officer, was convicted of manslaughter in the 2014 shooting death of Akai Gurley. Chris Fuchs / NBC News
Brooklyn state Assemblyman William Colton, who attended the press conference, said he had met Friday with the family of slain Det. Wenjian Liu — the Chinese-American New York Police Department (NYPD) officer ambushed in December 2014 while sitting in his patrol car in Brooklyn with his partner Det. Rafael Ramos — and that the Liu family was grieving for Liang, 28, just as they had for their own son.

RELATED: NYPD Officer Peter Liang Guilty of Second-Degree Manslaughter in Akai Gurley Killing

On Thursday, a jury of seven men and five women convicted the former rookie officer of second-degree manslaughter and official misconduct, a charge that stemmed from Liang's failure to perform CPR on Gurley. Liang and his partner Shaun Landau, both of whom have been fired by the NYPD, were conducting a vertical patrol of a stairwell on Nov. 20, 2014, in the Louis H. Pink Houses when Liang fired his gun.

The bullet ricocheted off the wall of a pitch-dark stairwell and struck 28-year-old Gurley, who had entered from the seventh floor with his friend Melissa Butler. NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton said at the time of the shooting that the fatal shot "appears to be an accidental discharge" of Liang's gun.

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New York City Police officer (NYPD) Peter Liang reacts as the verdict is read during his trial in court room at the Brooklyn Supreme court in the Brooklyn borough of New York February 11, 2016. Mary Altaffer / Reuters
Before entering the stairwell, Liang had unholstered his Glock 9 mm and placed his finger on the side of the gun, he testified, adding it's up to officers when to draw their weapon. Vertical patrols require that officers first check the roof, where criminal activity often occurs, and then descend the stairs floor by floor, according to testimony.

His gun in his left hand, a flashlight in his right, Liang tried turning the stairway door knob with his right hand, but the door wouldn't open, he said. So he gave it a push with his right shoulder.

RELATED: In Tears On Stand, NYPD Cop Recalls Fatal Shooting of Akai Gurley

Liang said he heard a "quick sound" to his left — a sound that startled him — and his gun went off.

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Gurley made it down to the fifth floor landing with Butler where he collapsed, the bullet having pierced his heart and lodged in his liver. Butler knocked on the door of a resident, who called 911 and passed along CPR instructions to Butler.

Prosecutors said that after the shot rang out, neither Liang nor Landau called it in to supervisors, even though both had working radios and cellphones. Liang testified he felt unqualified to perform CPR on Gurley because he was given answers to the exam at the Police Academy and never had a chance to practice on a mannequin.

Akai Gurley's daughter Akaila reacts on her mother Kimberly Ballinger's lap as reverend Al Sharpton speaks at the National Action Network in the Harlem borough of New York November 22, 2014. CARLO ALLEGRI / Reuters
Many Liang supporters at Friday's press conference said the Chinese-American former police officer wouldn't have been convicted of second-degree manslaughter and official misconduct if he had been white. They said they believed his indictment last February and conviction were a consequence, in part, of white officers not being indicted in police incidents in 2014, in which unarmed black men were killed — those include Eric Garner, a Staten Island man placed in a chokehold, and Michael Brown, a teenager shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri.

The last NYPD police officer convicted in a fatal civilian shooting was in 2005. Bryan Conroy was sentenced to probation and 500 hours of community service for killing an African immigrant during a police raid.

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RELATED: Race 'Doesn't Matter': Reactions to Officer Liang's Indictment

Cathy Dang, executive director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, a group that addresses police and hate violence toward Asian immigrants and that has been vocal in calling for Liang's conviction, said that all district attorneys must be held accountable to prosecute white police officers.

Asian-American groups march in support of Akai Gurley, an unarmed 28-year-old father who was shot and killed by NYPD Officer Peter Liang in November, 2014. CAAV
"All the evidence presented before the jury demonstrates that Officer Liang is in fact guilty," she said in a statement. "Now, what we have left is to hold the entire system accountable."

During more than a dozen interviews in Mandarin with NBC News Friday afternoon, members of the Chinese immigrant community along Brooklyn's Eighth Avenue said they believed race played a role in the case, and that Liang was being scapegoated for the lack of indictments in other civilian deaths at the hands of police. It's a sentiment that has also been repeated in the Chinese-language press.

RELATED: Chinese Community Divided Over NYPD Officer's Indictment

"After hearing the verdict, we were all surprised," said one man, who declined to give his name but said he was a worker at Sweet Cafe Inc.

Another woman behind the counter who called the verdict "unfair" added: "We don't dare tell our kids to become police officers. It's so scary."

Supporters rally for NYPD Officer Peter Liang, indicted for the Brooklyn shooting of Akai Gurley, an unarmed man. Courtesy of Chaojun Zhang
Up the block at EG Homes Inc., a home goods store, a man behind the counter who gave only his last name as Dong said if Liang were white, he wouldn't have been found guilty. He also said Liang was a scapegoat.

"So many white police officers don't have any problem," Dong said, adding that the guilty verdict didn't surprise him. "But a Chinese officer does. [That's because] we're a minority."

At Fortune Bakery, a woman who gave only her last name as Huang ran back and forth between the kitchen and the display counter bringing out warm buns as she shared an almost identical viewpoint with Dong.

"If Liang were white, he wouldn't have had an issue," Huang said, adding she thought the verdict was unfair. "They bully Chinese. It's discrimination."

Peter Liang sits in court as testimony is read back for jurors during deliberations in his trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court February 10, 2016 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Byron Smith / Getty Images
One of Huang's coworkers, who declined to provide her name, displayed her cellphone and showed a message sent over WeChat, a popular Chinese-language social media platform, urging members of the Chinese community to attend Friday afternoon's press conference in Brooklyn where Liang's mother appeared.

"OUR SYSTEM FAILED GURLEY AND IT FAILED LIANG. IT PITTED THE UNJUST DEATH OF AN INNOCENT YOUNG BLACK MAN AGAINST THE UNJUST SCAPEGOATING OF A YOUNG ASIAN POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS FRIGHTENED, POORLY TRAINED, AND WHO COMMITTED A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT."
At a separate news conference in Manhattan's Chinatown Friday afternoon, Robert Brown and Rae Koshetz, Liang's attorneys, told NBC News they were shocked when they heard the guilty verdict announced Thursday night.

"I can't imagine how the jury determined that the people proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Peter's actions were reckless manslaughter," Brown said.

Brown and Koshetz have argued during the trial that Liang was in a "state of shock" after his gun accidentally went off, that he was unaware his bullet had struck anyone, and that he tried to make several radio transmissions about the shooting that were incomplete or did not go through.

But prosecutors portrayed Liang's actions in a different light, telling jurors in opening arguments that Liang violated key critical life-and-death training when he recklessly pulled out his gun, fired without reason, and then argued with his partner over calling for help as Gurley lay dying.

Brown and Koshetz both said they still stick by their decision for a trial by jury rather than by State Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun in Brooklyn.

"We're back at the same place that we would be, which is that the judge now has an opportunity to consider whether the evidence was sufficient to support the charges," Koshetz said.

Liang's attorneys asked Chun to set aside the verdict, a decision the judge said he would reserve for a later date. Brown said Chun would likely announce his ruling on April 14 when Liang, who remains free without bail, is sentenced. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

Judge Danny Chun reads the backs the charges against police officer Peter Liang in the shooting death of Akai Gurley, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016 at Brooklyn Supreme court in New York in New York. Mary Altaffer / AP
Brown and Koshetz also said they plan to appeal if Chun does not dismiss the charges. On Wednesday, Liang's attorneys asked Chun to declare a mistrial, arguing that Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Joseph Alexis, in his closing statements, accused Liang of committing intentional crimes for which he hadn't been charged. Chun denied the request, saying Alexis' statements did not rise to the level of prosecutorial misconduct.

A number of Asian-American elected officials also weighed in on Thursday's verdict. New York City Council member Margaret Chin, who last year praised the indictment and at the time told NBC News that Liang had to be held accountable for Gurley's death, said in a statement: "My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Akai Gurley, and Officer Liang's family, friends and supporters. Now that the jury has reached its verdict, it is my hope that the long process of healing can begin."

"WE DON'T DARE TELL OUR KIDS TO BECOME POLICE OFFICERS. IT'S SO SCARY."
State Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens said his heart was heavy for both Gurley and Liang.

"I do not believe true justice prevailed," Kim said in a statement. "Our system failed Gurley and it failed Liang. It pitted the unjust death of an innocent young black man against the unjust scapegoating of a young Asian police officer who was frightened, poorly trained, and who committed a terrible accident."

At the press conference in Brooklyn Friday, Liang's mother said in Mandarin that she hadn't slept since hearing the verdict. Worried about her son's spirits, she added that she's kept watch over Liang all day and all night.

"He has already suffered enough after the incident," she said. "And now he has been convicted of manslaughter."

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