NEW YORK (AP) – A New York police officer recklessly fired his gun into a darkened stairwell, shooting a man, and then “stood there whining and moaning about how he could get fired” instead of helping the dying man, a prosecutor said Monday at the manslaughter trial.
After the 2014 shooting, Officer Peter Liang and his partner walked past Akai Gurley and a friend who was trying to give him CPR, prosecutor Marc Fliedner said in opening statements. Neither officer stopped, he said.
“A police officer – this police officer – and he never even knelt down and try to fix what he’d done,” Fliedner said.
Defense attorney Rae Koshetz said that Liang’s gun discharged accidentally and that he didn’t commit a crime.
“Peter Liang had no intent to hurt anybody,” she said.