NYC cop said to be indicted for stairwell shooting of unarmed man

By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City rookie police officer was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday for the fatal shooting of an unarmed man while patrolling the darkened stairwell of a housing project last November, local media reported. Peter Liang, the officer, was patrolling with his partner in the Brooklyn housing project around 11:15 p.m. on Nov. 20 when his gun discharged a single bullet, killing Akai Gurley, 28, who was in the stairwell a flight below with his girlfriend. A spokeswoman for Kenneth Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney who oversaw the grand jury's secret consideration of Liang's case, declined to comment. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has angered many members of his police force by expressing support for some of those protests, released a statement reacting to the reports that the grand jury had voted.

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