Nothing can bring back Akai Gurley, but the jury did deliver a difficult and just verdict against officer.

After due deliberation, 12 New Yorkers justifiably found their peer, rookie NYPD Officer Peter Liang, guilty of manslaughter for discharging his gun in a darkened Brooklyn stairwell in November of 2014 , releasing a single round that struck and killed Akai Gurley, who had just opened the door to the stairs one flight below.

The evidence presented by Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson was clearly sufficient to hold Liang criminally responsible for recklessness in placing his finger on the trigger of his gun at a time when he faced no immediate threat.

The law empowers police officers to use deadly force when they reasonably fear for their safety or the safety of others, with the understanding that they must sometimes make split-second life-ordeath decisions not to be casually secondguessed or criminalized.

Such was not the case for Liang, who was fired by the police department immediately upon his conviction.

He drew his gun while on vertical patrol with a partner in East New York’s Pink Houses, a highcrime public housing development. Since the duty entails danger, the NYPD gives cops discretion over whether to draw their weapons. But the department also insists that a cop may place a finger in the firing position only when there is extreme and particularized danger.

Liang may have had cause to draw his gun in a dark stairwell, but that act demanded the greatest care, because he was more likely to meet an innocent resident than a mortal threat. Additionally, evidence showing how hard it was to pull the trigger enabled the jury to infer that the gun did not discharge by itself.

That Liang and his partner, Shaun Landau, failed to immediately investigate the results of that stray shot, and then failed to provide aid to Gurley, surely influenced the jurors’ decision to also convict the rookie of official misconduct.

The verdict may well be recognized, wrongly, as one about the NYPD and even the state of American policing. Rather, under the rule of law, it was a judgment about the act of one young officer who failed to live up to his obligation to protect and serve.

Finally, there can be no satisfaction after such a tragedy. One young man’s life has been ended, and the young man who took that life has greatly damaged his own.

“There are no winners here,” said Thompson Thursday night.

But the people of New York should appreciate their 12 peers who considered the facts and delivered what justice can.