Christopher Schurr was a Grand Rapids Police Officer who got into a fight with Patrick Lyoya in the early morning of on April 4, 2022. During the struggle, Lyoya fought Schurr for control of Officer Schurr’s Taser and was fatally shot by the Officer during the scuffle.
The jury, deliberating on the trial today, have reported to the judge that they are deadlocked in the case. The judge has asked them to continue deliberating.
Officer Schurr originally stopped the car driven by Lyoya because the license plate did not match the make and model of the vehicle. The case has become a media sensation because the victim, Lyoya, was a black immigrant, and the law enforcement Officer Schurr, is white.
At the time of his death, Lyoya’s driver’s license had been revoked and there was an active arrest warrant for him for a domestic violence case, details his family and supporters call “irrelevant.”
The local chapter of the NAACP agrees, Cle Jackson, President of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP said, “Whatever he had, warrants, past run-ins with the law, it has no bearing on what happened in this case.”
Officer Schurr was charged in June 2022. The jury in his criminal case, chosen at random, is made up of 10 women and 4 men. 10 of the jurors are white, 3 are latino, and 1 is black. 1 juror is an immigrant.
It’s undisputed that Lyoya ran from and fought with the police. The main argument by defenders of the deceased is to complain that the fatal shot was to the back of the head. Their logic is that by shooting him in the back of the head, he was no longer resisting.
“He shot him in the back of the head … When you put a gun in somebody’s back of the head, there’s an intent to kill there,” Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker told the jury. The prosecutor has alleged that even though Lyoya was fighting for the Taser, that the fight was not worth the use of deadly force because Tasers are not lethal and did not pose a ‘dire threat’ to the officer and that there was ‘no evidence that Lyoya intended to harm’ Officer Schurr.
Tasers are lethal and have been connected to a significant number of deaths.
Officer Schurr claims he acted in self-defense.
The political left has a long history of trying to defend obviously guilty black criminals against white law enforcement officers, by creatively cherry-picking facts and using narrative framing to racialize common police encounters. In this way, the media and activists lied for years about the 2012 Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford, Florida where activists lied about the background of Martin and the fight he started with George Zimmerman resulting in Zimmerman’s bloody head injuries. Similarly, the 2014 Mike Brown shooting in St. Louis was defined by lies about Brown saying “Hands up, Don’t Shoot!” which was not true. Radical left activists and judges were able to jail the McMichaels family in Georgia on both state and federal charges after the 2020 death of Ahmaud Arbery despite video evidence showing Arbery grabbing a shotgun and starting the fight that ended with his death. The 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis set off riots across the country that resulted in an estimated $1-2 billion in damages, after activists claimed Floyd was suffocated by Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee to the back of his neck, even though Floyd had injested a fatal dose of Fentanyl and asked to be laid on the ground prior to Chauvin’s knee being put on Floyd’s shoulderblade. Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison, and 22 1/2 years in state prison.
Left-wing activists have been busy building a narrative of perceived injustice against law enforcement based on these incidents that later prove to be factually flawed.
Surveys show that police recruitment is down 10% nationwide, and 70% of jurisdictions report significant trouble recruiting officers, the effect, many claim, to the left-wing racialization of law enforcement.
Bodycam footage of the shooting has been available and makes clear that:
- Lyoya resisted arrest
- Lyoya ran from Officer Schurr
- Lyoya fought with Officer Schurr
- Lyoya ignored commands to ‘stop’
The bodycam deactivated prior to the final, fatal, shot fired by Schurr at Lyoya and restarted when emergency medical technicians were trying to revive Lyoya.
The decision to try Officer Schurr for second-degree murder, though the juror can consider a charge of voluntary manslaughter. The two crimes, under Michigan law, can carry penalties of life imprisonment, or, in the case of manslaughter, up to 15 years in a state prison.
Demonstrators outside the courthouse have already gotten physical today.
Every officer called to the stand has said that Schurr’s actions were reasonable.
Schurr’s police captain Chad McKersie testified and said, “We don’t have to wait for someone to hurt us to do something.”
The media is trying to set the stage for another race hoax and city riots by stoking racial anger about the case.
Lyoya’s family is also suing Schurr for $100 million in a related civil case.
Judge Christina Mims has ignored the law to allow what state right-leaning blogs call “the rabid cop-hating prosecutor”, Chris Becker, to run a “circus.”
The judge has allowed hostile and aggressive questioning from the prosecution. The judge has also oddly allowed questions from the jurors to witnesses, but would block questions favorable to the defense. Observers also say that the judge has blocked every motion favorable to the defense of Officer Schurr.
