Lawyer sets up Liang defense fund

A lawyer has set up a legal defense fund for former New York City police officer Peter Liang, who was convicted earlier this month of manslaughter.

Gary Park, a lawyer who organized the fund pro bono; Fenny Liang, Peter Liang's mother; Christine Leung, a retired NYPD detective, and community groups gathered at a press conference on Feb 26 at the Confucius Plaza Community Room in Manhattan's Chinatown to announce the fund.

"There has been a tremendous outpouring of support from the local, national and international communities for Peter Liang to seek justice," said a release from Park's law practice, which has offices in Manhattan, Flushing, Queens and New Jersey. "The special legal defense fund account was created to accept, manage and disburse funds on Peter's behalf."

Park's law office said it was "proud to offer our pro-bono legal services in the creation and future maintenance of the special legal defense fund for Peter Liang and his family".

On Feb 20, thousands of people across the US protested the guilty verdict returned on Feb 11 against Liang, a Chinese-American rookie NYPD officer, in the shooting death of Akai Gurley, 28, in November 2014.

Liang, now 28, discharged his gun in a darkened stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project, and the ricocheted bullet fatally struck Gurley, a father of a 2-year-old girl, on a lower floor.

Prosecutors argued that Liang was reckless, more concerned about losing his job and showed indifference to Gurley's injury. He didn't attempt to provide CPR, choosing to wait for paramedics to arrive, witnesses testified.

But many of the protesters countered that the shooting was an accident and that a rookie officer without CPR experience should not have been sent to patrol a dangerous area.

They also allege that Liang was "scapegoated" because an African-American man once again had died in an incident involving police.

Park said that the efforts made on Liang's behalf have encouraged the former officer.

"I think he's more calm," Park said, according to the New York Daily News. "He was anxious about how we were going to manage all this. He had no idea he'd have this much support."

Park said "he's inspired, and he's got a positive attitude now".

Still, there is some sentiment in the Asian-American community in support of the verdict. Margaret Chin, a city councilwoman in New York, was in favor of Liang's indictment.

And in a Feb 24 op-ed in the Columbia Spectator, the Columbia University Asian American Alliance wrote that it stands "in support of #JusticeforAkaiGurley and his family. We believe that the indictment of Peter Liang was just and that no leniency in the length of his jail sentence should be considered, given the severity of his crime and his direct role in the loss of an innocent life".

hengweili@chinadailyusa.com