The New York City Police Department is investigating why a rookie officer shot and killed an unarmed man in Brooklyn Thursday night, the department confirmed to The Huffington Post. The victim, Akai Gurley, 28, had spent the night at his girlfriend’s apartment inside the Louis Pink housing projects, the New York Daily News reported. The couple left the seventh floor apartment around 11:15 p.m. and tried to take an elevator down to the bottom floor. When the elevator wouldn’t work, they entered the stairwell. Two officers, meanwhile, were conducting a vertical patrol — also known as a top to bottom patrol — inside the building. They were descending the “dimly lit stairwell from the eighth floor …
The New York City Police Department is investigating why a rookie officer shot and killed an unarmed man in Brooklyn Thursday night, the department confirmed to The Huffington Post.
The victim, Akai Gurley, 28, had spent the night at his girlfriend’s apartment inside the Louis Pink housing projects, the New York Daily News reported. The couple left the seventh floor apartment around 11:15 p.m. and tried to take an elevator down to the bottom floor. When the elevator wouldn’t work, they entered the stairwell.
Two officers, meanwhile, were conducting a vertical patrol — also known as a top to bottom patrol — inside the building. They were descending the “dimly lit stairwell from the eighth floor landing,” according to an NYPD press release, when Gurley and his girlfriend, identified by the Daily News as Melissa Butler, entered the stairwell.
That’s when one of the officers fired a round into Gurley’s chest.
“He didn’t do nothing wrong,” Butler told the paper. “He was just standing there and they shot him. He was an innocent man.”
Gurley was transported to Brookdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
The two officers were also taken to the hospital to be treated for tinnitus, which is a ringing noise inside the ears, often caused by gunfire.
The officer who fired the fatal shot, DNAinfo reported, is a rookie who was on probationary assignment to the housing bureau. It’s unclear at this time what prompted him to fire his weapon. The NYPD said it’s investigating the incident, and NYPD Commissioner William Bratton is scheduled to give a press conference on the shooting Friday morning.
This is a developing story …
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