Akai Gurley was visiting his girlfriend, Melissa Butler, who lives in the Pink Houses project in Brooklyn. As they entered the stairwell to leave, police on a routine patrol entered the same “dimly lit” stairwell from the eighth floor. One of the officers had his gun drawn and, apparently, his finger on the trigger.
According to Butler, the officer almost immediately fired a shot into Gurley’s chest.
Gurley and and Butler then attempted to flee down the stairs but Gurley collapsed on the fifth floor. He was later pronounced dead at Brookdale Hospital.
The shooting officer was later identified as Peter Liang, a rookie who was still on probation after less than 18 months on the force.
In a press conference, New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called the incident a "tragedy" and blamed the "accidental discharge" of the officer's gun.
Gurley, Bratton told reporters, "is a total innocent. He was "not engaged in any other activity than trying to walk down the stairwell."
"He just happened to be entering that hallway just as the officers entered that hallway one landing up," Bratton added.
Bratton, however, said the officers were in the building because of a recent escalation in criminal and violent activities. They were on what Bratton called a "vertical patrol" in which officers start at the top of a building and check floors while going down using the stairwell.
The incident comes at a time of tension between law enforcement officials and African-American communities awaiting a grand jury decision to indict officer Darren Wilson who shot and killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
At least twelve more African-Americans have died at the hands of police officers since the Ferguson incident that occurred on August 8.
