Officer Christopher Schurr, a former cop from Grand Rapids, Mich., is accused of being a murdering, badge-waving shitbag, after finally facing charges stemming from his execution style shooting of an immigrant from the Congo named Patrick Lyoya. The victim was 26-years-old at the time of the killing.
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The victim was killed on April 4 this year, but Schurr was not formally charged until June 9 – which is 65 days after Lyoya was shot in the back of the head, while laying face down on the ground as Schurr laid on top of him.
Not only was Schurr not charged during those two months and five days since the shooting, he was also not fired for the incident until his charges were formally filed. Continue Reading…
This not only speaks to the notion that police are automatically given the benefit of doubt over cases that would be immediately prosecuted if their roles were reversed. It also goes to show that literally murder charges have to be filed against cops in order to see them fired for killing the citizens they’re sworn to protect.
The prosecutor, Chris Becker, said in a news conference streamed live on Facebook: “The death was not justified or excused … by self defense.” He briefly defined the statute for second-degree murder before making that statement, which he also said was a fairly simple charge to define.
This has me wondering, if it’s so easily defined, why it took more than two months to assess whether or not the officer met the state’s standard for prosecution.
Even so, Becker only charged Schurr with a single count of second-degree murder. There were no other offenses leveled against him that might have indicated that any departmental investigation of the killing was thorough enough to conclude whether or not Schurr breached his duties in pulling Lyoya’s car over in the first place.
This further drums up the question that, if the county had two months to prepare a murder case against an average citizen who man-handled and murdered a cop in a similar scuffle, would they find more charges to file. It seems likely, since most prosecutorial cases against citizens by local governments for assaults on officers and other citizens include consideration of every aspect of the crime, including things like weapons charges, nearby property damage caused by the scuffle, whether or not the assailant was trespassing at the time of the incident, if their license was valid at the time of the incident and so on.
In fact, in this week’s church shooting in Orange County, California, David Wenwei Chou, 68, was charged with one felony count of murder, five felony counts of premeditated attempted murder, four felony counts of possession of an explosive device, and felony enhancements of lying in wait and personal discharge of a firearm causing death, officials reported.
I suppose we’re actually lucky to see charges even filed against the officer, since it’s often reported that charges are rare for police killings. In fact, it’s often falsely argued that police are not granted extra rights over the citizens. This is false, first and foremost, as, from the moment they sign their oaths as police, they’re given the right to use deadly force in situations that would never be extended to common citizens.
They also benefit from the frequently called upon, and very powerful police unions who influence everything from lax prosecutorial litigation against cops to qualified immunity (which happens quite frequently, and makes it nearly impossible to successfully sue public officials). They frequently aren’t prosecuted in small and mid-sized communities due to a lack of prosecutors who don’t fall under conflicts of interest exclusions. It’s also known that jury pools tend naturally to side with police due to their frequent practice of pruning certain details, court language rehearsals, and presupposed status in the courts.
These waters are further muddied by lax departmental oversight given to predatorial police officers using their badge as a get-out-of-jail free card.
Nevertheless, due to the delays in seeking justice for the Lyoya family, the incident rightly spurred protests around the Grand Rapids area, while the district attorney took his sweet time in coming to the decision to charge the former officer, who, only this week, was actually fired, presumably for cause relating to the incident.
The protests got so raucous that the protesters actually shut down a commission meeting this past Tuesday with shouts for demands of justice for Lyoya’s killing. Presumably, the protestors knew very well that charges would likely immediately be levied against civilian citizens, if the killing occurred between traditional residents, as they argued that cops are not held to the same standard as status quo citizens in the eyes of the law.
I saw the original video for this incident many weeks ago. It all started from a standard traffic stop. Lyoya didn’t appear aggressive, he didn’t pull weapons, the officer didn’t mention any suspicion of weapons, and he also attempted to manhandle Lyoya with no apparent suspicion of any crime. If I recall, the officer pulled Lyoya over for something related to his license plate. When Schurr asked for Lyoya’s driver’s license, that’s when he started grabbing Lyoya. The incident turned into a scuffle, Schurr tried to shoot Lyoya with a taser – also for no apparent reason, and also for no apparent suspicion of a crime. Lyoya swatted the taser away.
At the end of the bodycam video, which extends beyond the time of the footage shot by Lyoya’s passenger, a very sad scene plays out. Schurr’s body camera had not only apparently stopped recording during the scuffle, it also magically started recording again after the paramedics had arrived on the scene. They’d started CPR on Lyoya, and the body cam was pointed upward at a second responding officer who stood over the EMTs performing the unsuccessful life-saving efforts.
Lyoya was not obeying the officer’s commands, And in fact, it appeared at one time like he might flee the scene. But there was also no indication by Schurr that would indicate Lyoya was under arrest.
In the end, there was no reason I could think of that would justify such a delay in bringing charges against Schurr for his actions that day. But I can almost guarantee that if there was no one around recording the incident, that delay may well have ended up being a complete refusal to press any charges at all. This is especially fortified by the notion that Schurr’s bodycam just happened to fail, as so many other officers’ cameras seem to fail, right at a pivotal moment in an incident.
My heart goes out to the parents of Lyoya, who had to answer the door one day to one officer delivering the news that another officer in that same department had killed their son.
Keep them in your thoughts as well, as this case moves forward. And let’s hope that they receive justice for the execution of their son.
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