Meanwhile, the City of New York has agreed to pay more than $4 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Akai Gurley, an unarmed African-American father who was killed by a police officer in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project in 2014. New York City police officer Peter Liang fatally shot Gurley as he was walking down the stairwell with his girlfriend because the elevator was broken. Liang was doing a stairwell inspection. He says he accidentally fired his gun. Following the shooting, Officer Liang first texted his union representative before making a radio call for help as Gurley lay dying. A jury convicted Liang of manslaughter earlier this year, but a judge made the rare decision to reduce Officer Liang’s conviction to the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide, and sentenced him to 800 hours of community service. As part of the settlement, Officer Liang will pay $25,000 to Kimberly Ballinger, the mother of Gurley’s young daughter.