GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan – Grand Rapids police officer who shot and killed Patrick Lyoya after a traffic stop and a fight on April 4 will be charged with a second-degree murder charge the Kent County prosecutor announced Thursday afternoon.
Kent County Attorney Chris Becker says his office is accusing Officer Christopher Schurr of second-degree murder for Lyoya’s shooting death.
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Kent County Attorney announces charges against Christopher Schurr, full press conference
Prosecutor Becker made the announcement at a news conference at the Grand Rapids headquarters of Michigan State Police on Thursday afternoon.
According to Becker, Schurr has already delivered. Records show that Schurr became the correctional facility in Calhoun County shortly before 2 p.m. He will be tried on Friday.
The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday evening that Schurr is in the Calhoun County Jail at the request of the Kent County Sheriff. In a statement, the sheriff’s office said this is common in situations where someone previously worked in the jurisdiction where they are accused.
“The elements of the second-degree murder are relatively simple. First, there was a death, a death committed by the defendant. And then, when the murder took place, the defendant had one of those three moods: an intention to kill, an intention to do great bodily harm, or an intention to do an act that the natural tendency of that act would be to cause death or serious bodily harm, and finally that death was not justified or excused, for example, in self-defense. Taking a look at everything I reviewed in this case, I think there is a sufficient basis for proceeding to a single second-degree murder story, “Becker said.
Second-degree murder is a felony. Schurr faces life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted.
Becker says he plans to prosecute the case and will not be denied.
Following the announcement, attorneys Ven Johnson and Ben Crump held a press conference with Patrick’s family.
Lawyers for the Lyoya family react to the decision to charge the officer who shot and killed Patrick
“The Kent County prosecutor, who has certainly never charged another officer even though there have been several shootings with this crime before, which he clearly believes is that evidence,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he will receive the full cooperation of the Lyoya family and their lawyers. Crump issued a statement following Becker’s announcement.
Patrick Lyoya’s interactive shooting death story:
THE INCIDENT
It’s April 4, 2022. It’s Monday and it’s raining in Grand Rapids.
Shortly after 8 a.m., a Grand Rapids police officer stops a golden Nissan Altima near the intersection of Griggs Street and Nelson Avenue. Driver Patrick Lyoya, 26, is leaving Nissan.
Body and dashboard cameras and viewers’ mobile video capture the following.
All videos of Patrick Lyoya’s shooting
“Stay in the car!” the officer calls Lyoya as she leaves her police cruiser. Again, “stay in the car.”
Lyoya stands right next to the driver and looks confused as the officer approaches and asks for his license; asks if he speaks English.
“The license plate does not belong to this car,” the officer told Lyoya.
RELATED: Video footage shows the GRPD officer shooting Patrick Lyoya in the head
Lyoya opens the door, talks to a passenger inside and, after a few moments of silence, closes the car door and starts leaving without saying another word. The officer grabs Lyoya’s green sweater and the two begin to fight.
For the next few minutes, Lyoya and the officer fight on the grass of a house on Griggs Street. He has been told nine times to stop resisting.
A taser fires: It’s been two minutes since the officer first contacted Lyoya. He calls for Lyoya to drop the device. Both hands are on top, the video shows.
Eventually, the agent’s body camera breaks and no more video is recorded. The cause of the malfunction is still being investigated.
In other angles of the fight (a viewer’s phone and a neighbor’s Ring camera), the taser fires again.
“Drop the taser!” the officer calls again.
A few seconds later, with Lyoya in his stomach and the officer on top, the officer stands back, unsheaths his weapon, and fires a single shot at Lyoya’s head, killing him.
Lyoya’s body is lame on the grass.
It’s been a little over three minutes since he and the agent said their first words.
Panting, the breath visible in the humid April air, the officer picked up the radio. It stands a few feet from Lyoya’s motionless body.
“1915,” he radioed his badge number through heavy breathing, “I just got involved in a shootout.”
When their call ends, in the video, the sirens start ringing in the background.
THE VICTIM
Patrick Lyoya was born on February 5, 1996 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the eldest of six children of Peter and Dorcas Lyoya.
From an early age, Lyoya was active and passionate. He was an avid dancer and a football fan.
“It was a joy to his family and the leader of his brothers,” said a funeral program, written in both English and the native language of Lyoya, Swahili. “Patrick loved the holidays when the whole family got together and celebrated.”
“Patrick was a warm and loving person who would do anything for his family and friends,” he continued.
“Patrick was a loving person, he loved people,” his father told FOX 17 through an interpreter four days after his son’s death. “He was like a brother to me.”
Lyoya left the Congo as a teenager and spent several years living in a refugee camp in Malawi before moving to the United States at the age of 18. When she arrived, Lyoya attended Everett High School in Lansing for a short time. Years later, he would accompany a friend he met to the refugee camp at Restoration Community Church, a small Methodist church within a church that shares a building with Wesley United Methodist in Wyoming.
Her pastor, Banza Mukalay, who is also a Congolese native and spent some time in a refugee camp, says Lyoya could not have been more than 23 when she first entered through the church doors.
“She was very willing to change her life [do] something good, “Mukalay recalls.” It had a future. “
Like the rest of Grand Rapids, on April 13, Mukalay watched videos posted live by the Grand Rapids police department of the Lyoya assassination.
“I was so surprised, because it was far from my mind to feel that Patrick could die,” he said. “What happened to Patrick was very discouraging to everyone. Any refugee you talk to will tell you the same thing. We were very discouraged to see how this happened to Patrick.”
Images of the rallies:
At a rally in the center of Grand Rapids a few days after Lyoya’s death, Jimmy Barwan stoically listens to the screams of the organizers through the mechanics. He wears a black hooded sweatshirt with Lyoya’s face on the front overlaid with the words “Justice for Patrick.”
Barwan is also a native of the Congo, and was so close to Lyoya after the two met in western Michigan, that he refers to him as his brother throughout the interview.
“Everything we did we did together,” Barwan says. “It simply came to our notice then. It hurts. It hurts a lot. “
“We came out of Africa to come here, to feel safe,” Barwan continues. “Imagine being with someone and they’re not there the next day. Someone who meant a lot to you … a role model. “
Lyoya was also the father of two young children. In another interview a few weeks later, Barwan shows videos of children kissing their father’s face on a T-shirt. He says they are constantly asking for him. But they are young, one less than a year old, and Barwan says they still don’t understand their father’s fate.
The April 4 incident that ended in her death was not Lyoya’s first blow to law enforcement.
Court documents show that in May 2017, Lyoya fled the scene of a traffic accident: her license was suspended at the time.
In March 2021, Michigan State Police arrested Lyoya for operating while intoxicated in Allegan County. According to a police report, police followed Lyoya’s car for two miles and observed it fluctuating at speeds between 40 and 50 miles per hour. Police say the car crossed the centerline three times.
A preliminary breath test showed Lyoya’s blood alcohol level at 0.223. The legal limit in Michigan is .08.
FOX17 obtained a video of the incident, which shows a big difference with Lyoya’s interaction with the police during the traffic stop in April 2022. Lyoya complied with most of the soldier’s requests, although he seemed confused by what was happening. He asked, “What have I done?” several times while being questioned by state police.
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Video footage of Patrick Lyoya’s 2021 arrest for operating while intoxicated in Allegan County
Three days before Lyoya was murdered, an arrest warrant was issued for a single charge of domestic violence against an apparent girlfriend.
Ven Johnson, a lawyer for the Lyoya family, described Patrick’s record as “very irrelevant” to his murder.
“Anything that is supposed to happen there, the officer will not know,” he said. “You would have heard the officer use this one way or another, like, ‘Man, don’t run away because I know you have an order for blah. You haven’t heard any of that.’
“It has nothing to do with anything in this case,” Johnson continued. “In the 36 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had my client’s criminal …