Brooklyn, NY – Angered by last week’s conviction of a Chinese police officer in the shooting of an unarmed man, Chinese-American activists have vowed to unseat Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson in his upcoming re-election bid, calling him a racist.
As reported last week by TOT News, NYPD officer Peter Liang was found guilty Thursday on charges of manslaughter and official misconduct last week in the 2014 shooting of 28 year old Akai Gurley.
Liang claimed that his weapon accidentally discharged in a housing project stairwell, with the bullet ricocheting off the cinder block walls before fatally striking Gurley.
A jury deliberated for almost twenty hours before convicting Liang on the two charges and the rookie officer, who was terminated by the NYPD immediately after being convicted, faces up to 15 years in prison.
Executive director of the Chinese Action Network (CAN) Karlin Chan, told The New York Post that Thompson was using Liang as a scapegoat after waves of angry protests swept the country when police officers were cleared of any charges of wrongdoing in several high profile fatal shootings, as well as the 2014 death of Eric Garner who was put in a chokehold by an NYPD officer.
“This was a political movement by [Thompson] to bring a second-degree-manslaughter charge against Peter,” said Chan who expressed shock at the verdict in what he labeled a clearly unintentional shooting.
Chan said that CAN will be mounting a full scale campaign to prevent Thompson from holding any future elected positions because of the Liang conviction.
A recently created Facebook page, which links to the CAN website and is titled “Vote Out Ken Thompson 2017,” accuses Thompson of being both anti-law enforcement and a racist.
“No matter what office he runs for, we will be reaching beyond the Chinese and Asian communities, because he’s indicted the whole law enforcement system and he can’t get away with that,” said Chan.
