New York: A New York police officer will not serve any jail time for killing an unarmed black man, after a judge on Tuesday downgraded his manslaughter conviction to criminally negligent homicide.
Peter Liang, a rookie officer who had been on the job just months at the time of the November 2014 killing, was sentenced to five years probation and 800 hours of community service, the prosecutor's office said.
Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old father of one, was killed by a bullet that ricocheted off the wall in a darkened stairwell of a public housing apartment block in Brooklyn.
His death, along with others of unarmed black men at the hands of American police officers, sparked nationwide protests and fueled debate about police tactics and allegations of institutional racism.
Liang is "a convicted felon" who has "forfeited his career as a police officer and must now always live with the fact that he recklessly caused Gurley's death," said Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.
The Chinese-American officer was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury in February and had faced up a maximum sentence of 15 years. The maximum sentence for criminally negligent homicide is three years.
The trial was a rare case of a US police officer criminally charged for opening fire, but departments across the country have come under heightened scrutiny over the shootings of unarmed people, many of them black.
Liang testified that his gun went off accidentally and that he didn't realize someone was below him in the stairwell.
Brooklyn prosecutors had not sought jail time for Liang, saying that while he acted recklessly there was no evidence he intended to kill or injure Gurley. But they disagreed with the judge's decision to downgrade Liang's manslaughter conviction.
"While our sentencing recommendation was fair under the unique circumstances of this case, we respectfully disagree with the judge's decision to reduce the jury's verdict and will fight to reverse it on appeal," said Thompson.
The United States has been gripped by protests denouncing police tactics since the high-profile deaths of two other unarmed black men at the hands of law enforcement in the summer of 2014.
