NEW YORK -- Stunned relatives of an unarmed man killed by a rookie police officer in a dark public housing stairwell looked on as the Rev. Al Sharpton and public officials demanded a full investigation Saturday into what law enforcement officials have termed an apparent accident.
"We're not demonizing the police," Sharpton said, but "this young man should not be dead."
Police said the fatal shooting Thursday night of Akai Gurley in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood appears accidental. But "how do we know until there is a thorough investigation of all that happened?" Sharpton asked.
He spoke at a rally in Harlem, standing alongside Gurley's 2-year-old daughter, the girl's mother and several elected officials. Gurley's relatives remained silent during and after the rally.
Gurley's death comes at a sensitive time, with a grand jury weighing whether to bring criminal charges against another officer in the chokehold death of a man on Staten Island and the nation bracing for a potential announcement soon on whether an indictment will be handed up in the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old in Ferguson, Mo.
"Until we address the issue of police killing people of color, we're going to always have the problem; we're deaf on the issue," Alex Mallory, 64, a Bronx resident who once lived in public housing, said after the rally. "I could have easily been this guy, walking down the stairs."
City police often conduct "vertical patrols" inside public housing by going from roofs down staircases that sometimes are havens for crime. Police Commissioner William Bratton has said the patrols are needed, and the development where Gurley was shot had recently seen a shooting, robberies and assaults.
Officer Peter Liang and his partner, also new to the force, were patrolling a pitch-dark stairwell with flashlights late Thursday, police said. Gurley, 28, was leaving his girlfriend's apartment after she had braided his hair, said the girlfriend, who is not his daughter's mother.
Police said the officers walked down the stairs onto an eighth-floor landing when Gurley and his girlfriend opened a stairwell door one floor down, after giving up on waiting for an elevator. Police said Liang, patrolling with his gun drawn, fired without a word and apparently by accident, hitting Gurley from a distance of about 10 feet.
Mallory, the former public housing resident, said an officer should never patrol a building with a gun drawn.
"What are you saying: People who live in developments are animals or something?" he asked.
Bratton said officers generally have discretion on whether to draw their weapons based on what they are encountering or believe they may encounter. He called Gurley's death a tragedy that befell someone "totally innocent."
It was unclear how long the stairway's lights had been out or whether there had been complaints. The New York City Housing Authority did not answer those questions Saturday, saying only that the shooting was tragic and that housing officials would "continue to work with the NYPD and our residents to make our properties as safe as possible."
Liang, 26, has been placed on modified duty. Under standard policy, police internal affairs investigators won't be able to question him until prosecutors have decided whether to file criminal charges. Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson has called the shooting "deeply troubling" and said it warrants "an immediate, fair and thorough investigation."
New York Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron organized a protest march Saturday evening from the shooting scene to the Police Department office that patrols housing developments.
In a statement, march organizers said there was nothing accidental about Gurley's shooting.
"This is the deadly consequence of the increasing militarization of the police, from New York City to Ferguson -- and beyond."
A Section on 11/23/2014