Discrimination weighs on US cop's conviction

Members of the Greater Washington for Peter Liang Coordination Group observes a moment of silence for Akai Gurley on Wednesday afternoon in a press conference to announce a Saturday morning rally in front of the Washington Monument. Gurley was killed in 2014 when NYPD officer Liang discharged his weapon in a stairwell. [Photo by Chen Weihua / China Daily]

The recent conviction of Peter Liang, a Chinese-American policeman who accidentally shot a black man to death in New York in 2014, has sparked strong protests from the Chinese-American community. The 28-year-old rookie policeman was convicted of second-degree manslaughter earlier this month, and faces up to 15 years in prison. To many, Liang is being made a scapegoat for a series of police killings of African-Americans, says Monday's Beijing News.

Peter Liang was found guilty of fatally shooting unarmed Akai Gurley while patrolling with his partner on the darkened eighth floor of a building in the borough of Brooklyn. One bullet was fired from his service gun, which ricocheted off a wall and killed Gurley.

His manslaughter conviction is far from "flawed". He did have his finger near the trigger of his gun when his security was not being threatened, and he failed to offer first-aid to the man who was shot.

Such being said, what is really feeding the complaints of the Chinese-American community about the verdict is the political, not judicial injustice, that has long existed behind the scene.

Liang is the first policeman of the New York Police Department to be convicted of killing a civilian since 2005. Among the less than 180 similar cases in the city since 1999, only one police officer, who deliberately fired five times, was convicted, receiving probation of five years. And the white policeman who killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, was not indicted.

That explains why many believe Liang is being used as a scapegoat for the past injustices, especially when it comes to police officers' misuse of power. His supporters claim his treatment reflects the fact that non-whites are not treated equally in the country.

The truth is, though, there are Chinese-Americans, such as the New York City councilwoman Margaret Chin, who support Liang's indictment, saying he should be held accountable for Gurley's death.

But that did not stop the rallies being held in support of Liang over the weekend, which involved local Chinese-Americans from all walks of life across the United States. What drove them to demonstrate their political expressions, of course, was the decades of discrimination imposed on their community.

Whether the protests will have any influence on Liang's sentence remains unclear, but they will certainly inspire more Chinese Americans to protect their legal rights in a more unified and efficient manner.