Angry protestors flooded the streets outside the Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon after learning ex-police officer Peter Liang won’t spend a single day behind bars for shooting and killing unarmed black man Akai Gurley in 2014.
The judge sentenced Liang to five years probation and 800 hours community service, and reduced his charges from manslaughter to negligent homicide — a decision Gurley’s aunt later decried as the justice system putting police above the lives of black residents.
“Akai’s life doesn’t matter. There’s not justice. Black lives don’t matter,” said Hertencia Petersen after the sentencing.
The protestors held signs stating, “Hold all cops accountable, jail Liang now,” and held hands as they chanted, “Hands up to the sky, we do this for Akai” — facing off across Jay Street against a different group there to support Liang.
The Asian community has rallied behind the Chinese-American former cop during the trial — filling Cadman Plaza in February after a jury found him guilty of manslaughter and it looked like he would receive a much harsher sentence.
Liang and his supporters claim the shooting was an accident — he says he was patrolling a dark stairwell in an East New York public housing complex with his gun out and accidently pulled the trigger when a noise startled him — and that the police department was throwing the Bensonhurst resident under the bus to placate public anger over other police shootings because he isn’t white,
But the protestors say Gurley, who lived in Red Hook, is the one being denied justice, and Liang — who did not try to revive Gurley, while the victim’s distraught girlfriend attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation — deserves to be behind bars.
“You see a black person kills a black person and they get charged regularly, but if a cop does it, they get leeway,” said 14-year-old East New York resident Natayisha Walker, who was on her way home from high school when she and her friends spotted the protest and got off their bus to express their frustration with the criminal justice system.
Hitting the streets is their only way to be heard, said another protester.
“This is the only way they feel they can vent,” said Fort Greene resident Marquis Jenkins. “We’re going to march and we’re going to protest because justice was denied today.”
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompsen was the one who recommended Liang serve no jail time, but says he will appeal the demotion in charges.
