A choose declared a mistrial after the jury was unable to achieve a verdict within the homicide trial of a Michigan police officer who fatally shot a black man throughout a visitors cease.
Christopher Schurr was charged with second-degree homicide for the killing of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 4 April 2022.
The killing of Mr Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant, sparked widespread protests and put the query of racial injustice and policing within the highlight.
“It hurts. My household, my spouse, we’re bleeding,” Mr Lyoya’s father mentioned after the choose declared mistrial on Thursday. “We are going to proceed to battle till we get the true justice for Patrick.”
The mistrial is a partial victory for Mr Schurr, who nonetheless might face one other trial.
The 4 April incident was caught in graphic element and from a number of angles on a police bodycam and dashboard digicam, an eyewitness’ telephone and a doorbell safety system from a close-by dwelling.
Footage reveals Mr Lyoya fleeing from Mr Schurr on foot following a visitors cease. The 2 males scuffle over Mr Schurr’s Taser earlier than he shoots Mr Lyoya, who was face-down on the bottom.
The scuffle over the Taser was central to Mr Schurr’s defence, who testified that he was in nice concern as a result of a Taser may cause “excruciating ache” and harm.
“I believed that if I hadn’t accomplished it at the moment, I wasn’t going to go dwelling,” Mr Schurr mentioned of taking pictures Mr Lyoya.
Mr Schurr, an officer within the Grand Rapids police division for seven years, was fired quickly after he was charged in 2022.
Patrick Lyoya got here to the US along with his household from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014. He had lived in Grand Rapids for about 5 years, in line with the workplace of civil rights legal professional Benjamin Crump, who’s representing the Lyoya household.
The mistrial comes simply at some point after three former Memphis law enforcement officials had been acquitted of homicide within the killing of Tyre Nichols, a black man who was crushed throughout a visitors cease in 2023.
