Family of slain Brooklyn man files wrongful death lawsuit

The family of a Brooklyn man shot and killed by an NYPD officer has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.
Attorney Scott Rynecki, joined by Kimberly Ballinger, announced a civil lawsuit for the wrongful death of Akai Gurley. Ballinger was Gurley's domestic partner and the mother of his daughter.
 
Akai Gurley was fatally shot in the chest while in the stairwell of a NYCHA building on Nov. 20 last year.
The wrongful death lawsuit is against two rookie police officers: Peter Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau. Rynecki says that they were patrolling the stairwell where Gurley was shot despite being told not to do so.
"Peter Liang - in having his weapon out of his holster, in his hand, his finger on the trigger and causing that weapon to discharge so as to cause bullet to mortally wound Akai Gurley - was reckless in nature," he said.
The civil lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court Thursday also names the city and the New York City Housing Authority "for failing to properly maintain that building so as to all the lights in that stairwell to be unlit and to cause a trap-like condition to exist."
Liang's gun went off and killed Gurley. Police commissioner William Bratton called the shooting an accident. Liang was charged with manslaughter.
A spokesperson for NYCHA said that it can't comment on the pending litigation at this time.