Toll newly felt as Asian-Americans rise in US police ranks

New York

OFFICER Peter Liang is the rookie police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man, evidently by accident, in the stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project.

Lt Philip Chan is the veteran officer who suffered a broken nose after being punched during a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.

And Officer Wenjian Liu was one of the two policemen gunned down in their patrol car in Brooklyn.

Within the past few weeks, Asian-American officers have been in the middle of a series of wrenching incidents involving the New York Police Department (NYPD). Their frontline roles are more than just coincidence: they testify to a little-noticed but significant surge in their ranks.

Twenty-five years ago, there were just 200 Asian-American officers in New York City; now, there are more than 2,100 in uniform, or 6 per cent of the total, police statistics show. The percentage of academy graduates, moreover, has jumped to 9 per cent, f…