Rookie Cop Was A Nervous Wreck After Fatal Shooting Of Akai Gurley
Officer Liang appeared “incoherent” after the shooting.
The cop accused of fatally shooting an unarmed man in a Brooklyn stairwell was reportedly “unsteady” following the November 2014 incident.
According to his supervisor, NYPD Lieutenant Vitality Zelokov, who testified in court on Tuesday (January 19), Liang was “unsteady on his feet and incoherent” after the fatal shooting inside Brooklyn’s Pink Houses.
“I shot him by accident,” Zelokov recalled Liang saying when he got to scene on Nov. 20, 2014.
Defense attorneys claim this high-strung state is the cause of why the officer didn’t provide aid to Gurley, 28, who was bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. “It’s going to be pretty clear he broke down and was crying in the hallway, not necessarily the best physical and mental condition to perform CPR on someone,” said D.A. Robert Brown.
Per a report from New York Daily News, Liang was on the job for less than 18 months at the time.
“He appeared pale, unsteady on his feet and incoherent. I understood him. He understood me when I asked questions,” Zelokov stated.
Liang is charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, among other charges for the shooting death of Gurly in a dimly lit Pink Houses stairwell on that said Nov. night.
The officer is awaiting trial for the incident.