Congolese immigrant Patrick Lyoya, 26, was shot and killed on April 4 during a confrontation with a white policeman following an 8 a.m. traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The incident was captured on video by at least four cameras—the dashboard camera of the squad car, the officer’s bodycam, the cellphone of a passenger in the car, and the surveillance camera of a nearby home.
Made public on April 13, the footage outraged Lyoya’s family—which is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo—and provoked several small, peaceful demonstrations in the downtown area.
Within hours of viewing the videos, the family retained nationally known civil rights attorney Ben Crump and a team of lawyers, who held a press conference with the family on April 14.
The press conference took place at a Grand Rapids church and was attended by media from across Michigan and many members of the city’s Congolese community and others.
Speakers addressing the crowd had their remarks translated by an interpreter for the benefit of the family and some in the audience.
“Thank God for cellphone and surveillance camera video. Keep videoing the police!” said Crump.
Crump praised the protesters for heeding the family’s wishes to remain peaceful and for their part in pressuring officials to make the videos public.
He said he looked forward to working with city leaders to “get through this crisis.”
And he praised them for their “transparency” in releasing the footage, which he said tells the whole story.
“The last 15 seconds of video is the crux of the matter. Everyone ought to analyze it carefully frame by frame,” he said.
“The video shows us that this is as his parents said, ‘an execution.’ There is no way to spin it or justify it. Police escalated a traffic stop into an execution,” Crump said.
Crump used a blow-up still photo of one of the video frames to point out that seconds before the shooting the officer was on top of Lyoya as he drew his sidearm.
“The officer is in the superior position. Nothing we have seen in the video demonstrates that he [the officer] was in fear for his life for him to engage in deadly force and shoot Pat in the back of the head,” said Crump.
Crump alleges from the footage that Lyoya’s hands were not in a threatening position at the moment the officer fired his pistol.
Yet, at the showing of the video by Grand Rapids police on April 13, the officer can be heard shouting at Lyoya, “Let go of the Taser! Stop resisting! Drop the Taser!” just before the fatal shot was fired.
Earlier frames show that while the two were on their feet fighting, Lyoya’s hand and the officer’s hand were both gripping the drawn Taser.
Crump said it looked to him like an attempt by Patrick to prevent himself from being hit by the Taser.
At his showing of the video the day before, Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said that during the struggle before the final moments when the two were on the ground for the last time, the Taser appeared to have been discharged twice.
Winstrom stated that neither discharge struck anything but the ground.
“A Taser has potential to do great bodily harm,” he said.
Crump alleged that the make and model of the Taser carried by the officer could only be discharged twice without being reloaded, raising speculation that the Taser was harmless at the moment of the shooting.
He alleged the officer failed to follow his training and was unnecessarily aggressive from the beginning and throughout the traffic stop.
Crump said the video shows that as Lyoya was pulled over and exited his car to meet the approaching officer, he appeared confused and nervous.
“He could have been mindful of George Floyd and the atrocity committed against him by police.”
The video shows Lyoya answering the officer in broken English and then trying to turn and run, at which time the officer grabbed him by the arm and spun him around.
Crump said the language barrier may have been a factor.
“When the officer engages Patrick, he put his hands on him. When Pat goes to walk away, the officer could have deescalated. He could have stepped back and called for backup and waited, but, instead, he went hands-on.
“The officer was the one being violent. He kneed him and punched him multiple times. Pat did not retaliate or try to have combat, he was simply trying to get away,” said Crump.
“Patrick wasn’t stopped for a felony event. He hadn’t robbed anyone. He didn’t murder anyone. It was not even a moving violation. It was all over an inappropriate tag [a license plate that did not match the car it was registered to].
“You can’t shoot an unarmed person just because he resists—just because of the color of his skin,” Crump said.
“This was another senseless killing of a black person in America by the very people that are supposed to protect them.
“Based on the video evidence this officer should be charged and held accountable.”
At one point, Crump raised his fist in the air and led the crowd in chanting, “Justice for Patrick!”
Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack displayed a T-shirt imprinted with the slogan, “Please Let Us Live.”
Womack told the crowd, “Don’t throw a brick. Call Ben. Build a coalition.”
Robin McCoy, president of the Michigan Black Women Lawyers Association told the crowd, “We are seeing genocide by cops of black people—most cops are good cops, but we have some racist cops that must be rooted out from police departments.”
She compared the brutalization by police of black and brown people in America to the “violation of human rights in Ukraine.”
Ben Johnson, a member of the team of attorneys representing the Lyoya family, said he would be making filings in the federal courts for this case.
Team member Ayanna Hatchett will handle the family’s civil lawsuit against the city and the police department, according to Johnson.
Speaking through the interpreter Patrick’s father Peter said, “I didn’t know when I came to this country that there is genocide in America.
“My son never liked to fight. The officer was really beating Patrick. He was killed like an animal. He was killed for a small mistake. I’m asking for justice for my son.”
