The Reverend Al Sharpton on Saturday called for a full investigation into the death of Akai Gurley, an unarmed 28-year-old man who was killed by a New York police officer at a Brooklyn public housing complex on Thursday night.
Gurley was shot in the chest as he descended a darkened stairwell. On Friday NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton described the incident as an “unfortunate tragedy” and Gurley as “totally innocent”, and said an officer with less than 18 months experience on the job, later named as Peter Liang, appeared to have accidentally fired during a “vertical patrol” of the building.
Residents of the Pink Houses complex expressed their anger and called for justice justice during a night-time vigil. Also on Friday evening, New York mayor Bill de Blasio met some of Gurley’s relatives.
Speaking on Saturday at a heated meeting of his National Action Network campaign group in Harlem, Sharpton drew cheers and applause when he compared Gurley’s killing to the recent deaths at the hands of police of Eric Garner, in New York, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Ferguson remains on edge this weekend in advance of the expected announcement of whether a grand jury will indict the officer who shot dead Brown, who was 18 and unarmed, in August.
“This week has been a tumultuous week in terms of police cases,” Sharpton said, “and unless you stop trying to demonise those that raise the questions and start dealing with finding the solutions we are going to keep getting these recurring events.
“We come to the situation today from Staten Island where the officer did the choke-hold on Eric Garner four months ago, we are on stand-by in Ferguson, Missouri, and now back to Brooklyn – it’s time for us to start dealing with the issue of police conduct, police training and the rights of citizens.
“We’re not demonizing the police. We don’t know what happened … [but] this young man should not be dead.”
Gurley was with a woman named as his girlfriend, Melissa Butler, when he was shot. Butler attended the vigil. At Sharpton’s rally on Saturday, a woman identified as Gurley’s domestic partner, Kimberly Ballinger, held up her two-year-old daughter as Sharpton spoke.
“This baby will grow up without a daddy, who did nothing wrong,” he said. “This Thanksgiving these families will have to sit at a table with missing family members. There is no reason that this baby will not be sitting with her daddy this Thursday. Let’s quit making excuses and start dealing with what is right and fair.”
Liang, 26, has been placed on modified duty. Internal affairs investigators will not be able to question him until prosecutors have decided whether to file criminal charges. Brooklyn district attorney Kenneth Thompson has called the shooting “deeply troubling” and said it warrants “an immediate, fair and thorough investigation”.
On Saturday afternoon, Gurley’s sister, Akisha Pringle, said her brother was a “nice person”. “I have lost my brother and will never see him again or be able to hug and kiss him again. All he was doing was going home to his baby mother,” she said.
Referring to the fact that Gurley had a criminal record, she said that was irrelevant. “Whatever he has done in the past, or whatever he has been arrested for has nothing to do with him being shot the other night,” she said.
Earlier, Sharpton referred to a case from 2004, in which Timothy Stansbury, 19, was shot dead by a startled officer on a Brooklyn rooftop. His family agreed a $2m settlement with the city.
“The issue of police going up and down dark stairwells with their guns drawn and their safety off is at the center of this Gurley case,” Sharpton said. “That is the policy accident that, since Stansbury, we have said, to this city, you need to deal with.”
Sharpton said authorities had pointed out that the stairwell was dark because the lights were not working when the rookie officer – whose partner was also inexperienced – apparently accidentally fired his gun, which was drawn as he carried out a routine crime-prevention patrol. Liang was 10ft away from Gurley when he fired, according to police.
“People said the police were in the dark – well so was everyone else in the Pink Houses who have to live in the dark. They don’t know if they are facing a cop or a robber coming down the stairs,” Sharpton said.
