(5 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
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POOL
Grand Rapids, Michigan – 5 May 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Becker, Kent County prosecutor:
“’He grabbed my Taser, and I’m tired.’ That’s not enough. That is not enough to justify taking another person’s life. And watch the video. Yeah, take a look at the video. Yeah, he stands up three times. But at the moment he goes to push himself up, the defendant shoves him back down. He shoves him back down. He’s got total control over this incident. So, to think that he has to kill him at that moment is just wrong. It’s not reasonable. Yeah, no reasonable officer would come up with that.”
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2. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Becker, Kent County prosecutor:
“There’s no difference between a police officer or a civilian. You can’t take a life without a darn good reason.”
3. The Michigan seal affixed to a courtroom wall ++MUTE++
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Matthew Borgula, defendant Christopher Schurr’s attorney:
“Whether it was reasonable for him to make the decision he never wanted to make that morning, Christopher Schurr was at work and he was faced with the toughest decision of his life in half a second.”
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5. SOUNDBITE (English) Matthew Borgula, defendant Christopher Schurr’s attorney:
“Patrick Lyoya is making decisions. Officer Schurr is responding to those decisions and making decisions of his own based on his training as a police officer. He’s doing his job.”
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STORYLINE:
Jurors began deliberations Monday over whether a former Michigan police officer could have reasonably feared that he was at risk of great bodily injury or death when he shot and killed 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant, over three years ago.
In closing statements, prosecutors said videos of a traffic stop show that former Grand Rapids officer Christopher Schurr was not in danger while defense attorneys argued the same videos show Lyoya had control of Schurr’s Taser, a weapon that fires electrically charged probes. Schurr, who is white, was charged with second-degree murder and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
“To think that he has to kill him at that moment is just wrong. It’s not reasonable. Yeah, no reasonable officer would come up with that,” Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker said in his closing statement.
Jurors watched videos of the shooting — taken from multiple angles on a doorbell camera, body camera, dashboard camera and a bystander’s cellphone — numerous times throughout the trial, sometimes side by side and sometimes frame by frame.
Schurr pulled over a vehicle driven by Lyoya for improper license plates in April 2022 in a residential neighborhood in Grand Rapids, roughly 150 miles (240 kilometers) west of Detroit. Video footage shows Schurr struggling to subdue Lyoya as they grappled over the officer’s Taser. Schurr told him to stop resisting and drop the weapon multiple times throughout the encounter.
While Lyoya was face-down on the ground with Schurr on top of him, the officer took out his gun and shot him once in the back of the head.
“You can’t take a life without a darn good reason,” Becker said.
Matthew Borgula, lead defense attorney for Schurr, walked jurors through the traffic stop once again, arguing that Schurr performed his duties as a police officer reasonably at each moment.
“He’s doing his job," Borgula said.
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