Jurors in Peter Liang’s Brooklyn manslaughter trial were digging into the evidence on their second full day of deliberations Thursday — requesting that a second massive whiteboard be wheeled into the deliberations room as the lunch break was called.
That’s in addition to the similar, 5-by-3-foot whiteboard they started deliberations with.
Liang — on trial for the accidental shooting of unarmed Akai Gurley in a dark stairwell inside East New York’s Pink Houses — has remained cloistered in a small conference room on the second floor of Brooklyn Supreme Court, as Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association delegates mill around outside the door.
His attorneys have shuttled back and forth into the courtroom, as Gurley’s family waits with bated breath on the same floor during the nearly 13 hours that the jurors have deliberated since they began late Tuesday.
On Wednesday, jurors heard the charges read back, and then listened again to the 911 recording and police radio audio from the night Gurley died.
Each juror then held and tested the trigger on Liang’s unloaded 9mm Glock, turning it over in their hands and feeling the 11½ pounds of force necessary to pull the trigger and discharge the weapon.
They also requested Wednesday afternoon to have portions of testimony of Liang’s partner officer Shaun Landau and Gurley’s girlfriend Melissa Butler read back.
Deliberations continued Thursday afternoon.