The rookie cop who accidentally shot and killed a man in a dark stairwell at a Brooklyn housing project knew he was in deep trouble as soon as he discharged his gun — telling his partner, “I think I’m going to get fired,” even before learning he had hit the innocent man, according to an internal report obtained by The Post.
Officer Peter Liang had his drawn gun in his left hand and a flashlight in his right when he pushed open the stairwell door from the eighth floor at East New York’s Louis Pink Houses Thursday night, the report said.
He held the door open with his back as he peered into the dark stairwell at around 11:15 p.m., according to the report.
“Almost instantly, Officer Liang discharged his service weapon one time directly outward,” the report said.
The bullet traveled about 12 feet down to the seventh-floor landing, where it struck Akai Gurley, 28, in the chest.
The cops backed into the hallway, then heard people running down the stairs and “someone groaning,” the report said.
Liang, 27, and partner Shaun Landau ran back into the stairwell and followed the noise to the fifth floor, where Gurley’s girlfriend, Melissa Butler, was sobbing over Gurley’s bleeding body.
The four didn’t exchange a word, but Liang radioed in, saying “there had been an accidental discharge, a man was shot and that they needed [an ambulance],” according to the report.
When Lt. Vitaliy Zelikov arrived, he found Liang on the fourth floor, “visibly upset, shaken up and clearly very distraught,” the report said.
Liang told Zelikov he had accidentally shot the man and “began to hyperventilate.”
Another responding officer, Andrae Fernandez, noticed “a pool of blood” next to Gurley’s body while giving him CPR.
“He was shot. He’s my boyfriend,” he heard Butler repeating.
Butler, 27, later told cops she and Gurley were about to walk down from the seventh floor when she “noticed a light coming from the eighth floor and saw the eighth-floor door open… [She] then heard a gunshot and began to run down the stairs with Mr. Gurley behind her. [She] could hear Mr. Gurley gasping, but she did not know that he had been shot,” according to the report.
Butler, who “feared for her life,” rushed to the fourth floor, where she knocked on a tenant’s door asking if she could call 911, the report said.
“She was panicked, and I tried to help her stay calm,” the neighbor told The Post on Monday. “I don’t even know what kept me calm.”
With the help of a 911 operator, the neighbor instructed Butler on how to give CPR.
Gurley was pronounced dead at Brookdale Hospital.
Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson met with Butler on Monday and is still investigating the shooting.
Internal Affairs cops retraced Gurley’s steps at the Louis Pink Houses on Monday — entering through the same door and looking up at two cops standing where Liang and Landau stood.
Gurley’s death was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner Sunday evening.
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli, Kirstan Conley, G.N. Miller and Danika Fears