Lyoya, whose family hails from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was shot dead April 4 after a traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about 150 miles (150 miles) northwest of Detroit. Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Lyoya’s father, Peter Lyoya, said he never imagined his eldest son could be killed by a police officer in the United States. “When I saw the video, my heart was deeply broken,” he said through a translator. “Right now, my life is coming to an end. “My life was Patrick, my son,” Peter Lyoya told reporters. “To see that my son has been killed like an animal by this policeman, to see this video they showed, I see that I have no life, I see my heart breaking,” he said. “I ask for justice. “I demand justice for Patrick.” Police in Grand Rapids release footage from the deadly shooting on April 4 this week [Grand Rapids Police/Handout via Reuters] Lyoya’s assassination sparked protests and renewed calls for an end to police violence against blacks in the United States, where blacks’s lives matter from 2020. That year, a police officer killed another unarmed black man, George Floyd, at during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota – causing widespread anger and demands for change. Citing the need for transparency, police in Grand Rapids released videos Wednesday showing the deadly shooting, including critical footage taken by a passenger in Lyoya’s car that morning. They show Liogia getting out of the car on a rainy road, seemingly confused and asking “What did I do?” as the officer repeatedly requests a driving license and orders him to re-enter the vehicle. The video shows Lyoya being run by the police officer, who stopped him from driving with a license plate that did not belong to the vehicle. They fought in front of many houses and the officer repeatedly ordered Lyoya to “leave” his Taser, demanding at some point: “Throw the Taser!” Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said Wednesday that the fight for the Teaser lasted about 90 seconds. At the last moment, the officer was on top of Lyoya, kneeling on his back at times to subdue him. “From my point of view of the video, Taser has been developed twice. “Teaser did not come into contact,” Winstrom told reporters. “And Mr. Lyoya was shot in the head. However, that’s the only information I have. “ During a news conference Thursday, prominent US civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said the videos showed an “unnecessary, unjustified, [and] excessive use of fatal force. “You see a policeman escalating a small traffic stop to a deadly execution.” There was no reason for the policeman to shoot Liogia, Crump said, adding that the family called on the authorities to accuse the policeman “to the extent of the law for killing their son, for breaking their hearts, for orphaning his young children.” . “. “The video shows us that this is, as his mother, his father said – an execution. “There is no way we can try to turn it around or justify it,” Crump told reporters. “That’s why we demand justice for Patrick.” Grand Rapids police officers put the unidentified gunman on administrative leave and asked Michigan State police to investigate. Prosecutors in Kent County told CNN on Wednesday that they would rule on possible criminal charges once the investigation is complete. U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence of Michigan on Wednesday called for “full accountability and transparency.” “For black Americans in Michigan and across the country, we are all familiar with this injustice. We do not need another course. We do not need another hashtag. We do not need thoughts and prayers. “We need action,” she said in a statement. Protesters respond to Lyoya’s murder in Grand Rapids on April 13, 2022 [Cody Scanlan/Holland Sentinel/USA TODAY via Reuters] Last year, activists called on the US Congress to pass legislation to reform the police, so named by George Floyd, the unarmed black man whose murder by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparked nationwide protests. But Republicans and Democrats in the Senate could not reach an agreement. During a news conference Thursday, Robert Womack, a member of the Kent, Michigan Board of Trustees, read out the names of black people killed by U.S. police in recent years: “Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery , Patrick Lyoya. » “From the moment we came to this country, the United States of America, which we call home, we simply begged you to let us live. “We ask you to let us breathe,” Womack said. “They just passed the anti-lynching bill. “Does law need humanity to understand that some marginalized communities do not deserve to be lynched, shot or executed?”
