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The cop who fatally shot 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya on April 4 has been charged with second-degree murder, according to authorities in Kent County, Michigan. Outrage and requests for the officer to be punished erupted after video of the interaction, in which a police officer shot Lyoya in the head following an altercation during a traffic stop, was released online.
A second-degree murder charge against Kent police officer Christopher Schurr has been filed by Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker. Felony charges are punishable by up to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Becker, who made the announcement during a news conference on Thursday afternoon.
On Friday, Schurr will be arraigned, according to Becker.
When the Grand Rapids Police Department published video of a traffic stop involving a White officer and a Black man for having mismatched license plates, it sparked outrage. However, Lyoya was caught on camera exiting his vehicle, defying the officer’s orders to remain inside. Lyoya appears to ask a passenger to obtain his license and then tries to walk near the passenger side of the automobile after he is told to get it from the car.
When Lyoya refuses to stop, the officer intervenes and tries to grab him. Lyoya and the officer engage in a brief scuffle before the latter escapes and the former pursues him on foot. On a nearby grass, the officer then confronts Lyoya, who engages him in a battle.
However, Cedar Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said the officer missed Lyoya both times he used his Taser. Both males appear to be holding the Taser at various points during the struggle.
While Lyoya is insisting that he isn’t touching the Taser, the passenger can be heard constantly saying he isn’t touching it.
Lyoya is eventually shot in the head by the officer who had gotten on top of him. His death was confirmed by an independent autopsy as the result of a gunshot to the head.
There were four separate recordings provided by authorities: one from the police officer’s body camera, one from the officer’s car’s dashcam, and one from a passenger’s cell phone. There is still a lot of information that can’t be deciphered. During the incident, the officer’s body camera was off, the surveillance video was shot from a fair distance away, and Lyoya’s cell phone was frequently aimed at the ground instead of the police and him.
At a news conference in April, Winstrom said that the body camera had stopped recording because the button controlling the recording function had been depressed for more than three seconds. He estimated that the two guys had been fighting over the Taser for about 90 seconds prior to the shooting, based on the footage.
With his father telling CBS News in April that his son was “killed like an animal,” Lyoya’s family has expressed outrage about the shooting. Since fleeing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014, Peter Lyoya and his family have been living in the United States.
“I came here to save my family,” Peter Lyoya told CBS News. “My son has been killed like an animal.”
It was “the one [who] was supposed to protect Patrick’s life, but it was the one [who] killed Patrick and took Patrick’s life away,” he continued.
On Thursday, Benjamin Crump, Lyoya’s family attorney, praised the decision to bring criminal charges against Schurr as a “crucial step forward.
“Mr.Crump went on to say “While the road to justice for Patrick and his family has just begun, this decision is a crucial step in the right direction,” Crump said. “Officer Schurr must be held accountable for his decision to pursue an unarmed Patrick, ultimately shooting him in the back of the head and killing him – for nothing more than a traffic stop.”
ISTHATPORKS TAKE:
Monkey see Monkey do. We have no sympathy for cops who obviously have a problem with human rights. Who needs an invitation to common sense. Who needs to learn the hard way because they were raised not to find the balance in some. The problem with this hard way is, it should have happened with George Zimmerman back in 2014. That case should have been a deterrent to all cops or people who may not know how to act in similar circumstances. But, as we’ve said on a few occasions that case gave life to bad cops like Trump gave life to Jan 6er’s, which proves that the bullshht in some people is just below the surface. We hope that the people who are now responsible for making a deterrent a deterrent do something spectacular because the cops who keep doing this obviously can’t save themselves from being stupid. It’s now high time that they did. Goodness knows that they will save a good percentage of people and cops from getting killed in the future.
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