Akai Gurley, another life lost in the world on November 20^th, as he walked in a dark stairwell in the Louis H. Pink Houses in the East New York neighborhood with his girlfriend at his side. The elevators in the building often malfunctioned and residents often used the stairs instead. Due to this, Akai had taken the stairs whose lights also malfunction from time to time. According to the NY Times, “Officer Liang, 27, was conducting a so-called vertical patrol with his partner, starting on the roof and heading down through the stairwells, a common procedure for officers assigned to housing projects. Officer Liang had his gun out and opened the door to a stairwell; the gun went off, authorities said, as Mr. Gurley entered the stairwell one floor below.” This fatal encounter was brushed off as mere “accidental death.”

The death of a man shouldn’t be excused as an accident. A life is more valuable than an excuse, however it isn’t seen in that way in our day and age. There are those who will find excuses and those who will use them to support their behavior. According to CNN, “The police commissioner said the decision on when to draw a weapon is the discretion of officers “based on what they are encountering or believe they may encounter. So there is not a specific prohibition against taking a firearm out. But again, as in all cases, an officer would have to justify the circumstances that required him to or resulted in un-holstering his firearm.” The death of man cannot be excused, yet it was in Akai Gurley’s case.