Bellevue council member Conrad Lee took a step away from his Bellevue duties on Feb. 20 to speak to a crowd of hundreds at a rally for equal justice for New York police officer Peter Liang.

Lee was invited to speak as an individual at the rally, which took place at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. He was not speaking on behalf of Bellevue.

Liang is on trial for manslaughter after his gun allegedly fired by accident and killed Akai Gurley.

Lee said his involvement at the rally was asking for cooler heads to prevail.

“I feel sorry that Mr. Gurley was an innocent victim in all this,” he said. “There is a lot of emotion in this case, with politics involved.”

Organizers of the rallies (which took place in more than 40 cities nationally) claim that Liang might be a scapegoat as a person of color who is being unfairly punished as a result of other police-related killings. Liang, like Lee, is Chinese-American.

“We need to have the Chinese-American community be more engaged,” Lee said. “Traditionally we are not so engaged. We need to join to march for social justice and equality.”

Lee said members of the Black Lives Matter movement were in attendance and were given a chance to speak. He said the rally was peaceful and supportive.

“Our goal is not to be divisive and not to point fingers,” he said. “We wanted to make sure the social justice aspect was first and foremost.”

Organizers hoped that Liang would get a fair trial.