NEW YORK (AP)—Prosecutors should charge a police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man in a dark public housing stairwell, elected officials said last Monday after the medical examiner announced that the death was ruled a homicide.
City Councilwoman Inez Barron and Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron met with officials in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office on Monday. Afterward, Charles Barron told reporters he thought the shooting of Akai Gurley last week warrants a criminal charge for Officer Peter Liang.He said Liang’s use of a police weapon “was reckless endangerment, it was criminally negligent homicide.”
Whether charges are filed would be up to Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, who has called the shooting “deeply troubling” and said it warrants “an immediate, fair and thorough investigation.” His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
In ruling the death a homicide, the city’s medical examiner’s office said its finding that Gurley’s death “resulted in full or in part from the actions of another person or persons,” a gunshot wound to the torso, “does not imply any statement about intent or culpability.”
“… The evaluation of the legal implications of this classification is a function of the district attorney and the criminal justice system,” the medical examiner said in a statement.
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