Police shooting:

New York shooting added to anger over police killings.

An officer who fired into a darkened stairwell at a Brooklyn public housing complex, killing a man, has been indicted,

— A rookie police officer who fired into a darkened stairwell at a Brooklyn public housing complex, accidentally killing a man who had been waiting for an elevator, has been indicted in his death, a lawyer said Tuesday.

Officer Peter Liang will appear in court today in the November shooting death of 28-year-old Akai Gurley, according to Scott Rynecki, an attorney representing Gurley’s family.

A law enforcement official told the New York Times that the indictment against Liang includes six counts: one count of second-degree manslaughter, a class C felony; one count of crim- inally negligent homicide, a class E felony; one count of reckless endangerment; one count of second-degree assault; and two counts of official misconduct.

Patrick Lynch, head of Liang’s police union, said he deserves due process.

“The fact that he was assigned to patrol one of the most dangerous housing projects in New York City must be considered among the circumstances of this tragic accident,” Lynch said.

The indictment follows mass protests and calls for reform of the grand jury system nationwide after a Staten Island grand jury’s refusal to indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black man, and a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict a white officer in the death of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old.

Gurley was black. Liang is Asian-American.

Rynecki said the shooting was unjustified, regardless of whether it was intentional.

“This is the first step for justice,” he said.

Liang was placed on desk duty after the shooting. He will be suspended without pay after the charges are unsealed.

The indictment comes at a time of uneasy peace between the nation’s largest police force and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s City Hall. A rift widened between the police and the mayor after the Garner grand jury’s decision when the police unions expressed outraged that de Blasio spoke of warning his own son, who is biracial, to be wary when dealing with police.

And when two officers were killed in an ambush weeks later, the police union leaders blamed de Blasio for fostering an anti-police atmosphere that they believed contributed to the slayings.

AP Attorney Scott Rynecki, left, and Kimberly Ballinger, the partner of Akai Gurley, announced a lawsuit last month against the city and New York police over Gurley’s death. Rynecki said Tuesday that Peter Liang, the officer who shot Gurley, has been...