Peter Liang has been convicted for second-degree manslaughter for the Nov. 20, 2014 death of Akai Gurley. However, the impact of the black victim’s death reverberates into the New York Police Department (NYPD), particularly its CPR training.
Liang’s testimony during the trial exposed the apparent inadequate CPR training of NYPD cops, reported the New York Daily News in an exclusive report. Three officers, including Liang, admitted they were not prepared to perform CPR.
The dismissed officer attributed the lack of preparedness to their academy instructor giving their class almost all of the answers to the CPR exam. The instructor just withheld 10 questions from them so the cadets would not get identical scores, Liang disclosed.
Sean Landau, Liang’s partner, said his CPR practice on a mannequin was less than two minutes. Landau was dismissed from the NYPD also on Friday. Their testimony has led the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau to review the CPR issues that surfaced during Liang’s trial.
Scott Rynecki, in a letter to the NYPD inspector general, pointedout that “The failure to properly train officers is an absolute detriment to both the police officers and the public.” The discovery has led Kimberly Balinger, domestic partner of Gurley, to ask the inspector general to probe the department’s CPR training.
Liang’s conviction is seen by many observers, especially Asians, that the rookie cop was a pawn to make up for all the deaths of unarmed black men killed by white cops who were not convicted. Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said the verdict by the jury “will have a chilling effect on police officers across the city because it criminalizes a tragic accident,” quoted Cops.