TO: Aminta Moses
FROM: Daniel Chang
RE: Officer Liang’s Potential Negligence
DATE: November 28, 2018
I. Question Presented
Does Critical Race Theory validate the conclusion reached by the authorities in firing Officer Liang?
II. Short Answer
Probably yes. In this case, Peter Liang, who is the officer that killed an unarmed victim named Akai Gurley accidently. He misused his power as a police officer by shooting a gun, and his actions during the event cannot be justified. Even though the officer is not white but Asian, he is still the person who is classified as dominant and has power as a police officer.
Furthermore, even though the bullet from his gun ricocheted and killed the victim accidently, he would have saved a life by not pulling out and shooting a gun. He wouldn’t have brought out a gun and shot it if he was not conducting the vertical patrol in the Louis H. Pink Houses, which is a place where most people inside of the houses are minorities that are struggling economically. The police officer might have held the belief that places where minorities live are dangerous and that’s why he brought out his gun.
In addition, he failed to take actions to save the dying victim. Since he is a police officer who has power, he should have given proper first-aid treatment to the victim and call 911 for help. Emergency services come faster when a police officer calls them and says it is an emergency situation. In doing so, he possibly could have saved a life. However, he failed to do both of these actions and abandoned his responsibilities of saving a dying person. It is the duty of an officer to protect civilians. But in this instance, Officer Liang did the opposite by putting a civilian in danger.
In contrast to the two opinions above, it is doubtful that officer Liang would be punished if he was white instead of Asian. There are many incidents similar to this case. However, most police officers are never even convicted of or charged for a crime. There is no doubt that officer Liang made a mistake and killed a person. However, officer Liang was convicted as guilty because he is an Asian. He wouldn’t have been convicted and charged for this incident as many other police officers if he was white.
III. Facts
According to the article “Officer Peter Liang Convicted in Fatal Shooting of Akai Gurley in Brooklyn” by Sarah Maslin Nir, on November 20th, 2014, Peter Liang and his fellow officer Shaun Landau went on a vertical patrol at the Louis H. Pink Houses in New York. While they were conducting the vertical patrol, Officer Liang accidently shot his gun at a dark stairwell after he heard a sound from the stairwell. The bullet from the officer’s gun ricocheted on a wall and it hit Akai Gurley’s chest. Melissa Butler, who is the girlfriend of Akai Gurley, tried to help him survive the gun wound while he was dying. It wasn’t until later that Officer Liang found out that he shot a person. However, even though he found out that the victim was dying; he didn’t give proper first aid to the victim, such as CPR, and the victim died soon after. Officer Liang argued that he was in shock when he realized that he shot someone. He reasoned that he also didn’t receive proper training from the Police Academy to conduct CPR. Those are the reasons why he couldn’t perform CPR to the victim. Officer Liang was fired by the Police Department and he was convicted of second-degree manslaughter. However, there are many cases where police officers were not fired from Police Department and found not guilty for killing people in the line of their duty.
IV. Discussion
a. Issue
Officer Liang was fired from the police department because he committed a manslaughter by shooting his gun recklessly. Even though he didn’t directly shoot his gun towards the victim and the bullet ricocheted, he misused his power as a police officer, which is shooting a gun. Police should use a gun when they are under severe danger. However, it is not clear to say that Officer Liang was in danger at that moment just because of the fact that he heard a sound from the stairwell. There is no evidence that the sound was at all threatening. The issue is whether Officer Liang’s shooting a gun could be justified by the critical race theory.
Critical Race Theory is defined as “a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.” This theory challenges the foundation of liberal order and the dominant mindset of society. Based on critical race theory, the officer’s shooting at Akai Gurley wouldn’t be justifiable and Police Department’s decision of firing Officer Liang would be appropriate.
b. Rule Statement/Theory
In critical race theory, people are divided into two groups, which are a dominant group and a non-dominant group. People in the dominant group have power over people from the non-dominant group. People who are from the dominant group and have power should recognize how their misuse of power could impact people from the non-dominant group. They should be cautious in using their power as to not harm the people who don’t have power.
c. Application
In critical race theory, dominant groups have power and oppress non-dominant groups. In this case, Officer Liang could be considered as a member of the dominant group because he was a police officer. Some people might argue that he is not in a dominant group because he is Asian American and not white. However, we could define him as dominant because he had the power to use force against criminals. The victim is in the non-dominant group because he is black, and he was in dangerous housing project, which is the Louis H. Pink House.
Police officers have the right to use force when they are under significant danger. However, people who are not police officers can’t easily use weapons to protect themselves because they have to prove that they used weapons for self-defense. Officer Liang claimed that he took his gun out because he heard a sound from the unlit stairwell and shot the gun by mistake. Officer Liang should have been more careful about pulling his gun out because people from non-dominant group don’t have a means of defending themselves. Even though the officer didn’t directly shoot the victim, the tragedy would have been prevented if he was more careful about taking his gun out and not so easily reactive to a small disturbance.
Another reason why officer Liang took his gun out from the holster could be because of an implicit bias. Many people from the dominant group tend to have the implicit bias that non-dominant groups are dangerous and violent. Even though the situation that Officer Liang was in was not significantly dangerous, his implicit bias made him believe that he was in a dangerous situation and instinctually react by taking his gun out of his holster. He probably did not realize he had an implicit bias, it may have been completely subconscious. However, he should have tried to recognize that he had an implicit bias and tried to eliminate it to avoid making a tragedy like this happen.
d. Conclusion
Officer Liang could be specified as a member of the dominant group and the victim Akai Gurley is a member of the non-dominant group. Since the dominant group has power, Officer Liang should have thought more carefully and deeply about the consequences of pulling out his gun and misusing his power as a police officer. Also, Officer Liang should have recognized his implicit bias in various ways, such as noting the danger of seeing himself as objective, using interest convergence, and improving the conditions of decision making. However, he failed to do so. Based on his actions and analyses by critical race theory, people would believe that firing Officer Liang is appropriate.
a. Issue
Officer Liang was fired from the police department because he failed to try to save the victim who was dying. He argued that the reason why he didn’t give proper treatment to victim is because he was in shock in that moment and didn’t receive enough education about how to give CPR from the Police Academy. Instead of calling 911 for help, he made a radio call about the incident. The issue is whether the officer’s action could be validated under critical race theory.
Critical Race Theory is defined as “a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.” This theory challenges the foundation of liberal order and the dominant mindset of society. Based on critical race theory, the officer had power but failed to help the victim and this wouldn’t be justifiable. So, the Police Department’s decision of firing Officer Liang would be appropriate.
b. Rule Statement/Theory
In critical race theory, people are divided into two groups, which are a dominant group and a non-dominant group. People in the dominant group have more power than people from non-dominant group. People in the dominant group, whom have power, should use their power to help non-dominant group instead of using it for oppressing non-dominant group.
c. Application
In critical race theory, dominant groups have more power than the non-dominant groups. In this case, Officer Liang was the party with the power in this incident. He was a police officer and had more power than civilians. According to critical race theory, his position as a member of dominant group who has authority and power over civilians, he should have understood how important to use his power as a police officer for helping people from non-dominant group (black male and female civilian).
He should have given a proper first-aid treatment to the victim instead of just passing the dying victim. As mentioned earlier, he argued that he didn’t receive enough education about how to give a CPR from the Police Academy. However, it’s highly likely that he knows about how to give an emergency treatment better than just a regular citizen because he received education from the Police Academy. His action could not be justified and should be treated as abandoning his responsibility as a police officer. In addition, since he is a police officer, who is in the dominant group, he has more power than the victim or his girlfriend in asking for help. If he had called 911 for help and told them that this is an emergency situation, 911 would have come earlier than when his girlfriend called them. However, he chose not to. Not only should officers maintain public safety of the neighborhood, but also, they have to help people who are in danger.
d. Conclusion
Officer Liang is a member of dominant group who has power, he should have thought more carefully and deeply about what he should do when he found a person dying. He would have recognized that he has the power to save the people from the non-dominant group. However, he failed to use his power to help the victim. Based on his actions and analyses by critical race theory, people would think that firing Officer Liang is appropriate.
a. Issue
Officer Liang was fired from the police department because he is Asian-American. In the article “Officer Peter Liang Convicted in Fatal Shooting of Akai Gurley in Brooklyn,” it said that police officers are not often indicted by grand juries for casualty happened during policing. From the example mentioned in the article, undercover police officers and detectives who kill black people were not found guilty. The issue is whether the officer’s firing from the Police Department could be validated under critical race theory.
Critical Race Theory is defined as “a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.” This theory challenges the foundation of liberal order and the dominant mindset of society. Based on critical race theory, the officer is distinguished as non-dominant because he is Asian, which is the minority. Since he is considered as a minority, he doesn’t have power as his fellow white police officers do. So, the Police Department’s decision of firing Officer Liang would not be appropriate.
b. Rule Statement/Theory
In critical race theory, society is divided into two groups, which are a dominant group and a non-dominant group. People in the dominant group have more power and privilege than people from non-dominant group.
c. Application
In critical race theory, dominant groups have more power than non-dominant groups. In this case, Officer Liang was from the non-dominant group since he is Asian instead of white. According to the critical race theory, because of his position as a member of the non-dominant group, he was not treated as other police officers. Although most police officers are immune from deaths in the line of their policing work, Officer Laing was charged for manslaughter. Because of his racial background, he was not able to have the same rights that white police officers have. Also, the majority of police officers who killed people in the line of duty didn’t get fired from the Police Department. However, not only was Officer Liang convicted for the incident, but also, he was fired.
d. Conclusion
Officer Liang is a member of the non-dominant group who does not have power, he was treated differently from how other police officers were. Most police officers weren’t fired or convicted guilty for killing people during their job. However, Officer Liang was fired because he is not in the dominant group and didn’t have as much power as others do. Based on his racial profile and analyses by critical race theory, people would think that firing Officer Liang is not appropriate.
V. Impact
This decision would be of particular interest of minorities who are not in the dominant group. However, not only people who are in non-dominant group, but also people from the dominant group will be interested by this decision. For the non-dominant group, this decision would mean a lot since the police officer could be punished by reckless decisions they make. Also, this decision could reduce excessive and unjust policing towards a non-dominant group. There are huge psychological effects on people from the non-dominant group when there are excessive and unjust policing because this could make the non-dominant group have a fatalistic view towards circumstances and conform with the dominant group. Not only people from the dominant group, but also people from the non-dominant group label themselves as potential criminals when they are accustomed to excessive and unjust policing.
In addition, minorities such as Asian and black would be interested in the decision because this decision could be a parameter of how non-dominant groups of people will be treated compared to the dominant group when similar incidents happens. If minorities don’t care about this decision and don’t protest against the unfair decision, then dominant groups would not know that discrimination against non-dominant group exists. Same unfair decision will be made and people from minorities would not be able to use power and rights that the dominant group has.
For the dominant group, especially police officers, this decision would make them be more cautious about what decisions they make during policing. They will think more about when to use force or not because they know that they will be punished for misusing their power. Also, this decision would give them a chance to look back on their implicit bias. Police officers will think and try to fix their implicit bias towards non-dominant people. Furthermore, they will be put in the mindset that it is important to help people who don’t have the same power they have as the dominant group. Police officers will take responsibility and use their power to help people who are seriously injured.
There might be some people who don’t agree with the actions that Officer Liang took and believe they were not justified, but it is still important to think about the effects it will bring if Officer Liang was not fired by the Police Department. If he wasn’t fired from the Police Department, it would create a precedent and other police officers would feel comfortable to pull out their guns whenever they feel like they are unsafe. This will cause similar tragedies to happen and go unpunished. This is not good for not only non-dominant group, but also for both groups because there will be a higher chance of officers using a gun. That also means that there is a higher chance a casualty will happen. In addition, if Officer Liang wasn’t fired from the Police Department, more police officers would not help people who are seriously injured. Whenever police officers see someone who is dying, they would just say that they didn’t get enough education about saving people or they were shocked at the moment. It would be harmful for both non-dominant and dominant groups because people from either group could be seriously hurt and need help from the police officer.