On November 20th, 2014 Akai Gurley was murdered by NYPD officer Peter Liang in an unlit stairwell at the Louis H. In the critical moments after the shooting, Liang was reported texting his union representative instead of calling for medical help for Akai Gurley. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called the fatal shooting an accident.
“The Shoot first, ask questions later” mentality is not an accident. It is a learned behavior and a promoted para-military model of training that continuously leaves our families and communities in a state of agony and terror. The recurrent charges of police murder, abuse of power, hostility, discrimination, harassment, and violence are deeply-rooted in the NYPD institutional culture. Black/Brown communities cannot afford band-aid resolutions and explanations that deny the historical, political, and economic context in which police murder and brutalize within our neighborhoods. We refuse to be patrolled differently due to our race, class, sexual orientation and/or gender. Akai Gurley’s murder was not an accident. Akai Gurley’s murder and the many sisters and brothers before him is a result of an unchecked monopoly of legalized force, brutality and murder. Akai Gurley’s murder is the result of strategies based within a para-military policing model that patrols and controls the effects of social, educational and economic neglect. We refuse to be murdered or excessively targeted for the institutional violence that serves to gentrify and remove us from our neighborhoods. We put this page together to support the Akai Gurley family by promoting, mobilizing and building safety and security that won’t murder or treat the families in our communities as criminals. Instead we will define safety and security by way of building people-power, protecting human rights, creating and practicing community-led accountability of institutions and by investing in education and economic development.
