Patrick Lyoya's family says he was 'executed' by white cop in emotional press conference

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump gave an impassioned speech about Patrick Lyoya’s death at an emotional press conference on Thursday, calling for the white officer involved in the 26-year-old Black man’s “execution” to be fired and charged.

Lyoya was killed on April 4 after a struggle with a Grand Rapids, Mich., police officer. A struggle over the officer’s Taser led to the cop shooting Lyoya as he was face down on the ground.

Crump called for the state attorney general to investigate the officer, whom Grand Rapids Police Chief ​​Eric Winstrom declined to name at a press conference Wednesday, since no charges have yet been filed. The shooting stemmed from a traffic stop after Lyoya walked away from the officer instead of following a command to get his license.

“This video was very difficult to watch because what you see in that video is unnecessary, unjustifiable, excessive use of fatal force,” Crump said. “You see a police officer escalate a minor traffic stop into a deadly execution.”

Crump alluded to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, comparing the war to what happened in the altercation between Lyoya and the officer.

“Right now, our leaders in the United States of America, we are condemning Russian soldiers for shooting civilians in Ukraine in the back of the head. Why aren’t we condemning police officers here in the United States of America shooting unarmed Black civilians in the back of the head?” he asked. “It’s a simple question.”

Peter Lyoya, Patrick’s father, moved his six kids from Congo in 2014 to flee violence, he told the Associated Press. Now he’s dealing with the heartbreak of losing his first-born son to violence in the U.S.

“My heart is really deeply broken. I didn’t know, I didn’t believe that in this country — that there’s a genocide in this country, I didn’t know. I didn’t know that here in America, there can be an execution-style to kill someone — to kill someone with a gun, and to be killed by the police officer,” Peter said in Congolese, according to an interpreter at the press conference.

Breonna Taylor, the emergency room technician killed in March 2020 in a botched no-knock warrant raid on her home in Louisville, Ky., was born in Grand Rapids. Her mother, Tamika Palmer, sat with the Lyoya family at the press conference and shared her grief as she said she’s continuing to fight for justice for her daughter.

Palmer said, “We haven’t done enough to make sure Patrick was safe. I know what it feels like to lose your 26-year-old child by the people who are supposed to protect and serve us. We’ve all seen the video — you can watch it 100, a billion times — we saw what happened and it’s clear what needs to happen. We can’t keep letting these people kill our children.”

She said the officer involved in Lyoya’s shooting death “needs to be arrested, convicted and prosecuted.”

“Breonna’s spirit is in here with Patrick’s spirit,” Crump added.

Grand Rapids police on Wednesday released several videos of the April 4 encounter, including from a police body camera, dashcam footage and cellphone and home surveillance footage.

In the footage, Lyoya is seen exiting his vehicle after getting pulled over for what Crump said was a “minor traffic stop.” When the officer comes over, he tells Lyoya to “get back in the car.” Instead, Lyoya closes the door and asks why he needs to get his information.

“Do you have a driver’s license, do you speak English?” the officer asks. Lyoya opens the driver’s side door and asks the passenger in his car to get his license. While waiting for it, he closes the door and starts to walk away. That’s when the officer pursues him.

Footage filmed at the scene shows that after a bit of a struggle on the ground, the officer fails to get Lyoya’s hands behind his back and instead shoots him in the back of the head while Lyoya, who was unarmed, was facing the ground.

The officer’s bodycam footage turned off before the fatal shot. Winstrom said that happens when a button is pushed for three seconds, and it appears that it unintentionally deactivated during the tussle.

“It is such a coincidence that the video cuts off right before he kills him,” Crump said. “All he had to do was to call for backup and wait, and this matter could have ended so differently. Yet he went hands on, and when you look at him escalating the situation, he was the one being violent.”

The officer is on paid leave and his policing powers were suspended, the department said. Attorneys for the Lyoya family are calling for him to be fired and charged to the “full extent of the law” for the killing.

Still, Crump thanked the Grand Rapids city manager and police chief for their transparency, saying on Thursday that it is “the first step to getting to the truth, and truth is the foundation for us to get to justice. Justice for Patrick.”

The investigation has been turned over to Michigan State Police.