Over the weekend, thousands gathered to protest the sentencing of Peter Liang, a former NYPD officer convicted of manslaughter for killing Akai Gurley, an unarmed black man. Many hailed the verdict as a triumph, yet the Asian-American community finds itself in anything but unanimous agreement.

Anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 people rallied to fill up the scenic Cadman Plaza Park by the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend, crowding around the marble memorial to William Jay Gaynor, a state supreme court justice and New York City’s mayor from 1910 to 1913. The back of his monument bears the inscription: “Ours is a government of laws not men.” A chant—“Justice! Justice!”—rang through the air.

The crowd of mostly Chinese demonstrators came out to support Peter Liang, a former NYPD officer who was convicted on February 11 of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Akai Gurley while patrolling the stairwell of the Louis Heaton Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn. Liang could face up to 15 years in prison. The overwhelming message at the rally was that what happened to Gurley was a tragic accident, and Peter Liang was made a scapegoat for police brutality because of his race.

Only it's not that simple. Many other Asian-Americans have hailed Liang’s indictment, and then his conviction, as a rare instance of accountability in punishing police officers that have killed unarmed black men. The Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, or CAAAV, has put Liang in the same category as NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, who choked and killed Eric Garner, and Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. “He’s not innocent,” says Helena Wong, former executive director of CAAAV and a founding member of Grassroots APIs Rising. “And he’s part of the larger system.”

Photo by Phoenix Tso

Here’s what happened on November 20, 2014: Rookie NYPD officer Peter Liang and his partner were patrolling the stairwell of the Pink Houses. At some point during the patrol, Liang fired his weapon, and the bullet bounced off the wall and hit Akai Gurley in the heart. He and his partner did not perform CPR, and instead allowed one of Gurley’s friends to perform it. Gurley later died at the hospital.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, NYPD commissioner William Bratton described it as "a very unfortunate tragedy...involving an accidental discharge." The NYPD placed Liang on “modified assignment” and had taken away his gun and badge during the investigation. Upon his conviction, Liang was immediately fired.

During the trial, Liang's family dismissed his lawyers provided by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association due to perceived unresponsiveness. While the PBA typically "rarely misses an opportunity to grandstand," its presence was hardly felt at the trial. (PBA president Patrick Lynch did, however, say the verdict would have a ”chilling effect” on policing.)

As The New York Times describes it, Gurley’s family views the incident as part of a much larger problem of America’s “unjust policing” against unarmed black men. They point to Liang failing to radio for an ambulance, or to tend to Gurley as he lay wounded, as evidence of that problem. Liang’s defense team pointed to his poor training at the Police Academy and his state of shock over hitting Gurley as proof that Gurley’s death was accidental instead of criminal.

The speakers at Saturday’s demonstration continually referred to Gurley’s death as a “tragic accident.” Several speakers, including Liang’s mother, offered condolences to his family, while Congresswoman Grace Meng, who grew up in Queens and represents part of the borough in Congress, aligned Gurley with Liang, painting both as immigrants whose paths would tragically cross in that fateful “unlit stairwell.”

That dark stairwell apparently represents the system’s failure to protect both Liang and Gurley, said Meng:

  "The elevator in the Pink Houses should not have been broken. The lights should not have been out in the stairwell. Two rookie cops should not have been patrolling by themselves in New York City. And public housing residents should not have to deal with crime that makes these regular police patrols necessary."

Many in the Asian-American community perceive the verdict as unfair. “Shocking! This is not manslaughter!” former New York City comptroller John Liu shouted from the podium in a thick New York accent as he described his reaction upon hearing the guilty verdict. But, Liu continued, nobody could’ve been that shocked. “We kind of had a sense in our hearts that this was going to be the result,” he said. “Because for 150 years, there has been a common phrase in America. This phrase is called, ‘Not a Chinaman’s chance.’ ”

"There are clear disparities in the way that Liang was treated, but that doesn’t absolve him of responsibility, because Akai Gurley is dead because of him."

In Liu's view, Peter Liang had little to no chance of getting fair treatment in America’s justice system, because he’s Chinese. He connected Liang’s case to the Chinese being labeled as “the yellow peril”—excluded from the country after working in dangerous conditions to build America’s railroad. (He also mentioned Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a former government nuclear scientist wrongly accused of espionage because of his Chinese ethnicity.)

Liu practically yelled himself hoarse as he described the Chinese community’s fraught history in the United States of America:

  "This is the history that we have seen, and that’s why as much as we understand that our African-American brothers and sisters feel a deep sense of injustice with all the killings, we Asian-Americans also feel a deep sense of injustice!"

While Liang was indicted and convicted for causing Akai Gurley’s death, few other police officers—many of them white—have had charges leveled against them for either similar or even more clear-cut incidents. The conversation over Liang on WeChat, a popular messaging app for the Chinese community, frequently mentions Daniel Pantaleo, who despite choking Eric Garner to death on camera was never indicted.

“Peter Liang is a scapegoat for so many things that have gone wrong!” Liu yelled at the end. He finished his speech by leading the audience in a chant:

“No scapegoat! No silence!”

Curiously, there were pro-police forces speaking at the rally as well, asserting that Liang’s conviction would make policing less effective. They went as far to suggest that the current climate of antagonizing the NYPD resulted in Liang’s conviction.

Then there were the questionable “All Lives Matter” signs being held by some demonstrators, a phrase often used to downplay the epidemic of excessive force against the black community. Do these demonstrators understand that context? Would they care that they might be aligning the pro–Peter Liang movement with one often viewed as racist? “There may be some conservatives behind the supporting of the pro-Liang rally,” says Wong. “Some of the conservative forces and pro-police forces are using race as a distraction to kind of hijack it.”

Wong adds, however, that Asian-American sentiment in this case “runs the gamut,” from those who think Liang was completely a victim to those thinking he did something wrong but questioning why he was singled out, and then to those thinking Liang should be sentenced for doing something wrong, which is the position that she and the CAAAV hold.

CAAAV was founded in 1986 in response to anti-Asian violence in the United States, including the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin. In its statement supporting Liang’s indictment, the organization said, “Asian and Asian-American communities cannot be complacent with the current inherently flawed criminal justice system.”

When I asked Wong how the NYPD has treated the Asian-American community, she pointed to NYPD surveillance of South Asians after September 11, NYPD officers roughing up 84-year-old Kang Chun Wong during a stop for jaywalking, and a policeman fatally shooting 16-year-old Yong Xin Huang in 1995 and walking away without an indictment.

“[In these cases], black and Hispanic community organizations totally come out to support the individuals,” Wong explains, though she thinks the pro-Liang forces have a point. “There are clear disparities in the way that Liang was treated, but that doesn’t absolve him of responsibility, because Akai Gurley is dead because of him,” she said. She adds that it is important that police accountability doesn’t stop with his case. “It’s one situation, and we need to continue to put pressure on the streets for all people who have been murdered by the police.”（Source: GQ）