There is little doubt that the mistaken killing of a guy who had the tragic misfortune to be in a stairwell when a scared rookie cop discharged his weapon in a dark stairwell of the Louis Pink Houses in Brooklyn was wrong. It was no accident that the cops revealed the dead guy’s rap sheet, even though there was no question that he did nothing wrong here, but no one will be indicted for that.

Kings County DA Ken Thompson has obtained an indictment for Peter Liang’s killing of Akai Gurley:

A grand jury impaneled last week decided it was a crime. The jurors indicted Officer Liang on several charges, including second-degree manslaughter, said a law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the indictment had yet to be unsealed. The other charges are criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and two counts of official misconduct, the official said.

There is little doubt that very real questions exist as to whether Liang’s handling of his weapon was criminally negligent, perhaps reckless, resulting in the death of Gurley.  And if so, a crime was committed.  At trial, a war of experts will be likely, arguing whether it was a mere accident, a product of unfortunate carelessness, or an inexcusably reckless conduct.  And whatever the outcome, it will happen in a public courtroom.

Yet, the indictment of Peter Liang emits an unpleasant odor.  It’s not that the indictment was wrong. It was not. It’s the juxtaposition of an indictment for a mistake compared to the failure to indict cops who engage in deliberate conduct.

The killing of Mr. Gurley followed fatal encounters between the police and unarmed black men — Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Eric Garner on Staten Island — and, while the circumstances of Mr. Gurley’s death were different, it tore into already fraying relations between law enforcement and minority communities around the country. Mr. Gurley’s name joined others shouted at demonstrations pressing for policing and criminal justice reforms.

We sleep well at night in the comfort of the platitude that “we are a government of laws, not men.”  It seems John Adams was wrong. We are a nation of prosecutors.  Some prosecutors will do their job, regardless of the fact that the target is a police officer.  Others will not.  Instead, they will put on a show to create the appearance of doing their jobs while assuring that no indictment will come.

Each of these cases is different, and each must stand or fall on its own merits.  That they are happening during the same time frame, overlapping in issues due to two overarching facts, creates the sense that they are connected.  In all these cases, and in the case of Tamir Rice as well, a black person is dead at the hand of a cop.

What emerges from the handling of these separate but similar killings is that platitudes about the laws won’t keep us safe at night.  Rather, the law is merely a tool, and like any tool, it’s only as good as the craftsman who uses it.  The craftsman in issue is the prosecutor in each instance.  Some have used the tool well, while others have used it to deceive the public and benefit a special class of defendant.

But for several residents, the indictment of Officer Liang — coming after grand juries in Ferguson, Mo., and on Staten Island declined to indict white officers in other deaths of unarmed black men — only underscored how capricious justice could be.

How could they have faith in the system, they asked, if it seemed to value their lives only intermittently?

The prosecution of Officer Liang shouldn’t be dictated or controlled by visceral anger toward the system and its special treatment of police.  As a defendant in a criminal prosecution, Liang is, and should be, entitled to individualized scrutiny for what he did or didn’t do. He is not the scapegoat for Ferguson or Staten Island.  Just because DA Thompson does his job where Richmond County DA Daniel Donovan failed shouldn’t mean that Liang is treated any more harshly than his conduct warrants.

Rather, the message is to those prosecutors like Donovan and St. Louis DA Bob McCulloch, the ones who thought they could trick us with gimmick presentments designed to fail, then utter a few platitudes about how the grand jury has spoken with the expectation that we would be satisfied with their fortune cookie law and secret sabotage.

Before Ferguson, most Americans had no clue what happened in a normal grand jury, why it existed or how it worked, making them easy targets to be treated like fools.  Since then, many have learned better, though not enough to prevent Donovan from pulling the same shenanigans.

In contrast, we see that there are prosecutors who do honor their oath, and are prepared to fulfill their duty to the public even when it involves the unpleasant task of prosecuting a cop.  They do their job because that is what they have promised the public they will do, and their integrity prevails over any concern for personal backlash from a police force far better organized to protect its interests than the public will ever be.

We just don’t have enough of these prosecutors of integrity to make this happen wherever a cop wrongfully kills.  We expect police to do their job honorably. We must demand the same of prosecutors, and that may well require them to indict a cop from time to time. Ken Thompson did his job, and it shines a light on those who failed.