Family of Black man killed by Michigan police demand criminal charges News
© WikiMedia (Tony Webster)
Family of Black man killed by Michigan police demand criminal charges

The family of a Black man killed last week by Michigan police demanded Thursday that criminal charges be filed.

Twenty-six-year-old Patrick Lyoya was stopped Monday, April 4, by Michigan police for an improper license plate. Grand Rapids police released striking dashcam video footage capturing the two-minute and 40-second interaction, which begins with the officer walking toward the car. Lyoya exited his vehicle and asked the officer for the reason for the stop. The officer asked for his license and registration, and whether Lyoya spoke English. Lyoya proceeded to the front of his vehicle where the officer attempted to restrain him. A foot chase ensued, followed by a struggle between Lyoya and the officer over a stun gun for about 90 seconds. The officer was visibly seen kneeling on the back of restrained and unarmed Lyoya before he was fatally shot with a single gunshot to the head.

Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump is representing the family of Lyoya, who sought refuge in the US from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2014. Crump demanded during a press conference that the officer be “identified, terminated and prosecuted.” Crump described the exchange as, “an excessive use of force; there was nothing within the video footage that demonstrated that the officer was in imminent fear for him to engage in deadly force.” Crump went on to say that “the officer had all the means to de-escalate the situation.” He mentioned that Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Daunte Wright, Andre Hill, Manuel Ellis, Stephon Clark, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd were also killed as a result of police brutality.

Crump and the Lyoya family have asked the state’s attorney to prosecute the officer to the fullest extent of the law. In calling for police reform on the federal level, Crump said, “we can’t afford one more day to pass, because as Tamika Palmer said, ‘how many more of our children have to die before we change the laws and change the policy here in the United States of America?'”

According to the Washington Post’s accounting from the FBI, 1,595 Black Americans have been reportedly killed by police since 2015, despite making up less than 13 percent of the US population. Black Americans are killed by the police at more than twice the rate of White Americans. Thousands of protesters have already taken to the streets and marched in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement in order to bring visibility to the repeated killings of Black Americans by law enforcement.