Two policemen executed for Brown/Garner

[I.Can't.Breathe]

NYPD Rookie Cop Shoots Unarmed, Innocent Public Housing Resident; Cop Texts Union Rep Instead of Calling for Emergency Medical Services as Victim Dies

EXCLUSIVE: Rookie NYPD officer who shot Akai Gurley in Brooklyn stairwell was texting union rep as victim lay dying

In the six and a half minutes after Peter Liang discharged a single bullet that struck Gurley, 28, he and his partner couldn't be reached, sources told the Daily News. And instead of calling for help for the dying man, Liang was texting his union representative. What's more, the sources said, the pair of officers weren't supposed to be patrolling the stairways of the Pink Houses that night.

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA , OREN YANIV NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, December 5, 2014, 2:30 AM

While Akai Gurley was dying in a darkened stairwell at a Brooklyn housing development, the cop who fired the fatal bullet was texting his union representative, sources told the Daily News.

Right after rookie cop Peter Liang discharged a single bullet that struck Gurley, 28, he and his partner Shaun Landau were incommunicado for more than six and a half minutes, sources said Thursday.

In the critical moments after the Nov. 20 shooting, the cops’ commanding officer and an emergency operator — responding to a 911 call from a neighbor and knowing the duo was in the area — tried to reach them in vain, sources said.

“That’s showing negligence,” said a law enforcement source of the pair’s decision to text their union rep before making a radio call for help.

“The guy is dying and you still haven’t called it in?”

To make things even worse, the officers were uncertain of the exact address of the building in the Pink Houses they were in, according to their text messages, the sources said.

Blood is seen on the stairwell the day after the shooting. Sources say Liang texted his union representative instead of calling for help as Gurley lay dying.

The explosive details of the immediate aftermath following the shooting of Gurley are at the center of an investigation by Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson — who is poised to present evidence to a grand jury as early as the end of this month.

The police shooting case is certain to command extra scrutiny after a Staten Island grand jury Wednesday declined to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

The two cops involved weren't supposed to be patrolling the Pink Houses' stairways that night, sources say.

Adding to the tragedy surrounding Gurley’s death, the officers involved were not supposed to be doing a patrol in the stairways, the sources said.

Deputy Inspector Miguel Iglesias, then the head officer of the local housing command, ordered them not to carry out such patrols, known as verticals.

He opted instead for exterior policing in response to a spate of violence at the East New York housing project.

“They’ve done verticals before,” a police source said of the two officers.

“But Iglesias’ philosophy was, ‘I want a presence on the street, in the courtyards — and if they go into the buildings they were just supposed to check out the lobby.”

Another source said the commander was furious after the shooting, raging, “I told them not to do verticals.”

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson is investigating.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton characterized the incident as an “unfortunate tragedy” and an accident. Officials said Liang was holding a flashlight in his right hand and a Glock 9-mm. in the other when he opened the door to the eighth-floor landing.

One bullet flew out and apparently ricocheted into the chest of Gurley, who was on the seventh-floor landing and taking the stairs with his girlfriend Melissa Butler, 27.

The victim stumbled down to the fifth floor and Butler knocked on a woman’s door on the fourth floor, pleading for help. That woman called 911, a source said.

The building's superintendent had reportedly asked NYCHA to fix the lights months earlier.

When Liang and Landau finally resurfaced on the radio, they reported an accidental discharge, added the source. Authorities have said they didn’t immediately know anyone was struck with the bullet.

The stairwell was pitch-black because the lights were out. The superintendent had asked NYCHA to fix the lights months before the fatal encounter. The problem was finally resolved hours after Gurley died.

While the shooting may have been a mishap, the cops’ subsequent conduct can amount to criminal liability, court insiders said.

The officers were supposed to be policing the exterior of the East New York development, says a police source.

“I would be surprised if it is not at least presented to a grand jury,” said Kenneth Montgomery, a lawyer for Gurley’s parents. “It’s a debacle and it speaks of criminal negligence.”

DA Thompson had called the shooting “deeply troubling” and promised “an immediate, fair and thorough investigation.”

A spokeswoman for his office had no comment Thursday. The NYPD also declined comment.

Gurley’s mother, Sylvia Parker, and stepfather, Kenneth Palmer, are scheduled to make their first public statements Friday morning, ahead of their son’s wake.

Gurley will be laid to rest Saturday.

[I.Can't.Breathe]

High-Ranking Police Inspector Pepper Sprays Women Protesters Seated On Sidewalk; Faces No Criminal Charges, "Penalized" 10 Vacation Days

Officer’s Pepper-Spraying of Protesters Is Under Investigation
By Al Baker and Joseph Goldstein
September 28, 2011 1:37 pm September 28, 2011 1:37 pm

Updated 8:44 p.m. | The police and Manhattan prosecutors are separately examining a high-ranking officer’s use of pepper spray on a number of female protesters at a demonstration on Saturday.
Update
Second Pepper Spray Video

A second video has emerged showing the use of pepper spray on protesters.

Go to Second Video »

Raymond W. Kelly, commissioner of the New York Police Department, said Wednesday that its Internal Affairs Bureau would look at the decision by the officer, Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, to use pepper spray, even as Mr. Kelly criticized the protesters for “tumultuous conduct.”

At the same time, the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., has opened an investigation into the episode, which was captured on video and disseminated on the Internet, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is continuing.

Inspector Bologna was identified on Wednesday in another video spraying others in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration with pepper spray. Recordings of the episodes show Inspector Bologna striding through a chaotic street scene along East 12th Street, where officers arrested some protesters and corralled others behind orange mesh netting.

Deputy Inspector Roy T. Richter, the head of the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents the upper echelons of city officers, said Inspector Bologna, who formerly led the 1st Precinct and now works in counterterrorism, would “cooperate with whatever investigative body the police commissioner designates to perform this review.”

Inspector Richter continued: “Deputy Inspector Bologna’s actions that day were motivated by his concern for the safety of officers under his command and the safety of the public. The limited use of pepper spray effectively restored order without any escalation of force or serious injury to either demonstrator or police officer.”

While officers consider the use of pepper spray relatively low on the so-called continuum of force available to them, the videos, made by several protesters at different vantage points, have prompted a level of criticism of the police rarely seen outside of fatal police shootings of unarmed people. The independent city agency that investigates accusations of police abuse said that about 400 people had complained, many from out of state.

On Wednesday, in his first public comments on the matter, Mr. Kelly questioned whether the video offered enough context to evaluate the inspector’s actions.

Mr. Kelly said he did not know what precipitated the action, but seemed to offer a justification for it. He said the group was disorderly and “intent on blocking traffic” as it marched on University Place, returning to the financial district, where protesters have camped for more than a week.

While the department’s Patrol Guide says pepper spray should be used primarily to arrest a suspect who is resisting, or for protection, it does allow for its use in “disorder control” by officers with special training.

Asked about Inspector Bologna’s actions, Erin M. Duggan, the communication director for Mr. Vance’s office, said, “The district attorney’s office takes all allegations of police misconduct seriously.” She said the arrests made at the protest on Saturday, which the police have said numbered around 80, were “being reviewed under the standard procedure.”

In one video, Inspector Bologna walks up to a group of women standing on the sidewalk behind some orange netting, squirts pepper spray at them and walks away. In interviews, two of those women said that they had received no warning before being sprayed and that its use was unprovoked.

A law enforcement official familiar with Inspector Bologna’s account of what occurred, however, said he was not aiming at the four women who appeared in videos to have sustained the brunt of the spray. Rather, he was trying to spray some men who he believed were pushing up against officers and causing a confrontation that put officers at risk of injury, the official said.

“The intention was to place them under arrest, but they fled,” the official said.

In the second video posted on the Daily Kos political blog, showing a scene that apparently occurred just seconds later, Andrew Hinderaker, 23, a photographer, can be seen with a press card around his neck in the path of a mist of spray.

In an interview, Mr. Hinderaker said he had been on East 12th Street and saw officers drag a woman from behind a net and throw her on the ground. He stepped forward and photographed the scene, then started walking on a sidewalk toward University Place.

“I felt something wet on my hand and my face,” he said, adding that he was not sure who had sprayed him. Moments later, he said, “it started to burn.”

Afterward, Mr. Hinderaker said, he crossed paths with Inspector Bologna, who told him, “You better get out of here,” and added that he could be arrested.