GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Witnesses to the fatal shooting of a 26-year-old Black man testified Monday in the trial of the former Michigan police officer charged with second-degree murder in the killing, three years after the case sparked weeks of protest and national outrage.
Patrick Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant who sought refuge with his family in the U.S. to flee violence in his home country, was fatally shot by former officer Christopher Schurr, who is white.
Lyoya was shot in the back of the head while facedown on the ground following a traffic stop. Schurr’s attorneys said in their opening statements that he acted in self-defense while prosecutors began to make their case that the deadly use of force was unnecessary and excessive.
The trial began in downtown Grand Rapids and is expected to last at least a week. A few people gathered outside the courthouse early Monday morning largely in support of Schurr. Some carried U.S. flags or “thin blue line” flags.
Here is what to know.
What happened?
Schurr pulled over a vehicle driven by Lyoya over improper license plates on a rainy morning April 4, 2022, in a Grand Rapids residential neighborhood.
Body camera footage and dash camera footage shows Lyoya run from Schurr after the officer asks for his driver’s license. Schurr tackles Lyoya and a struggle ensues as Schurr attempts to shoot his Taser at Lyoya.
Schurr’s body camera footage appears to show Lyoya reaching for the officer’s Taser. The body camera footage goes out before the shooting.
A passenger of the vehicle recorded a video. The cellphone footage shows the officer tell Lyoya to let go of the Taser multiple times.
While Lyoya is facedown on the ground and Schurr is on top of him, the officer takes out his firearm and shoots Lyoya in the back of the head.
The prosecutors played the cellphone video before the jury Monday morning. Lyoya’s mother and father, who were in attendance, broke into tears when the gunshot rang out from the video, his mother covering her eyes with her hands.
Prosecutors called witnesses, including the passenger who recorded the cellphone video and a neighborhood resident who saw the struggle between Lyoya and Schurr, but went back inside his house before Lyoya was shot.
The resident, Wayne Butler, said Schurr had control in the struggle the whole time. Butler said he tried to tell Lyoya to comply with the officer’s commands.
“In America’s history, this is how it ends every time,” he said.
Who was Patrick Lyoya?
Lyoya’s family has said he came to the U.S. to get away from prolonged civil unrest involving several rebel groups vying for control of territories in the mineral-rich eastern Congo. He was raising two children in Grand Rapids, a city of around 200,000 people located about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.
After fleeing violence back home, Lyoya ultimately joined a list of names of Black immigrants who sought better lives in the U.S. only to suffer abuse or death at the hands of law enforcement.
Before him, there was Botham Jean, Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima, all men whose cases increased awareness around the global impact of systemic racism in policing.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who eulogized Lyoya at his 2022 funeral, noted then that Lyoya was killed on April 4, the anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Lyoya came to America in search of a better life and “ran into an America that we know too well,” Sharpton said.
Lyoya’s killing prompted weeks of protest in the west Michigan city and calls to reform the police department.
Who is Christopher Schurr?
Schurr, now 34, was fired by the police department shortly after he was charged with one count of second-degree murder in June 2022.
He had worked for the department for seven years.
Schurr has said he acted in self-defense. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
Schurr was attentive as opening statements were given, occasionally turning to discuss with his attorneys. He watched the cellphone video that was played for the jury.
How significant is the Taser?
“A lot of what you’re going to hear about is this Taser,” Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker said in his opening statement while pointing to the weapon sitting on a table.
Becker said the Taser already had been deployed twice and therefore did not pose a threat to Schurr.
Tasers are generally considered nonlethal by police but the narrative often flips when handled by someone who is not law enforcement, said Ian Adams, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina.
Whether Schurr gave proper warning of his use of lethal force also will likely be of note to the jury, Adams said.
“In the video, you can hear the officer say, ‘Drop the taser,’ which is a command,” Adams said. “But whether or not it’s a warning that an officer is about to use lethal force is going to be contested.”
“This is a highly salient case in U.S. policing right now,” Adams said.
Mikayla Hamilton, one of Schurr’s attorneys, said in her opening statement that Schurr acted within reason and Lyoya’s resistance signaled danger to the officer. She said a Taser can cause injury even after it is deployed and that it is not a toy, picking the weapon up from the prosecutor’s table as she spoke.
“Officer Schurr was flooded with fear,” she said.
Charles Joe Key, a former Baltimore police supervisor who is considered an expert in the use of force, said the Taser can still cause pain and could have incapacitated Schurr even after it had been discharged. Key expected the physical struggle the two engaged in will likely be another factor of Schurr’s defense.
“Given the officer’s continued attempts to have the person quit, let go of the Taser, etcetera, then it would be a reasonable analysis by the officer that the person would continue to fight,” Key said.
___
Associated Press writer Fernanda Figueroa in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.