In a Brooklyn courtroom packed with the relatives of his victim, Peter Liang, the former New York City police officer who fatally shot Akai Gurley while on patrol in a housing project stairwell, was sentenced on Tuesday to five years of probation, escaping a prison term in the divisive police misconduct case.

The sentencing in State Supreme Court put to rest a politically contentious case that highlighted concerns over police accountability. It began in November 2014 when Mr. Gurley was hit by a ricocheting bullet in a dark stairwell of the Louis H. Pink Houses in the East New York neighborhood, joining a list of other unarmed black men who had been killed by the police around the country.(Nytimes.com)…[+]