CGTN America
Protesters attend a rally in the Brooklyn borough of New York Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016, in support of a former NYPD police officer Peter Liang, who was convicted of manslaughter for the 2014 shooting death of Akai Gurley, in a housing project stairwell. The 28-year-old Liang, who testified the shooting was an accident, could be sentenced to 5 to 15 years for shooting Gurley, who was unarmed. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Chinese-Americans across 40 U.S. states rallied in support Saturday of New York City police officer Peter Liang, who was convicted of killing an unarmed black man.
A jury found Peter Liang guilty in the 2014 shooting. He said he accidentally fired his gun in the dim stairwell of a New York City housing project.
CCTV’s Liling Tan reports from one of the rally sites in Brooklyn.
Dozens gathered in Washington to protest Liang’s conviction, which came on the heels of several high profile shootings of unarmed black men by white officers in America.
Larry Shinagawa is a research director with New Asian Leaders. He joined CCTV America to discuss the Liang case and backlash.
Liang’s supporters said the Chinese-American former police officer wouldn’t have been convicted of second-degree manslaughter and official misconduct if he had been white.
They said his conviction was a consequence, in part, of white officers not being indicted in police incidents in 2014 in which unarmed black men were killed. Those include Eric Garner, a Staten Island man placed in a chokehold, and Michael Brown, a teenager shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri.
For more on the Liang verdict and why as many as 10,000 Chinese Americans in Brooklyn were rallying in support of Liang, we were joined by Cliff Zhonggang Li, executive director of New Asian Leaders.
