Down a Dark Stairwell

Akai Gurley was shot to death in the unlit stairway of the Brooklyn housing project where he lived, November 20, 2014. Akai was a young black male. His killer was a police officer, a rookie who claimed his gun went off in a misfire. This came in the wake of a summer of conflagration in Ferguson. To the surprise and relief of many, the officer was charged with manslaughter. But there was another salient factor in this case: the cop was Chinese-American, Peter Liang. On the streets, Black Lives Matter advocates faced Asian American protesters who claimed Liang was just another scapegoat.