The latest victim of the New York Police Department, Akai Gurley, was remembered Sunday following an emotional funeral at the Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY.
Gurley’s domestic partner, his daughter, stepfather, mother, sister and other relatives and friends gathered to remember Akai Gurley, the 28-year-old unarmed St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.-born man who was killed by a rookie police officer on Nov. 20 inside a dark stairwell in the Pink Houses in Brooklyn. Officer Peter Liang was patrolling a stairwell when he went for the door on the eighth-floor landing. His gun went off — apparently by accident — and the bullet ricocheted and then hit Gurley who had just stepped into the stairwell one floor below.
The service was attended by several politicians including Public Advocate Letitia James, City Councilwoman Inez Barron and Assemblyman-elect Charles Barron.
Gurley’s mother, Sylvia Palmer on Friday spoke at his wake saying through tears: “There’s nothing in this world that can heal my pain and my heartache. “I need justice for my son because my son didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, who is leading the investigation, is set to present evidence to a grand jury as early as the end of this month.
Gurley, though born in the Caribbean moved to New York when he was a baby, relative say. He loved his mother, basketball and practiced creative dancing at church as a boy.
Gurley is the latest Caribbean-born, unarmed black and Latino men to have been felled by a police officer of the New York City Police Department. They include Jose (Kiko) Garcia of the Dominican Republic; Anthony Baez of Puerto Rico; Patrick Dorismond of Haiti and Ramarley Graham of Jamaica.
