The jury confirmed to a judge Thursday morning that it was unable to reach an agreement on a verdict in the Christopher Schurr trial. Schurr faced a second-degree murder charge for the death of Patrick Lyoya.
The jury began deliberating Monday, May 5.
The next day, jurors told the judge they'd reached a deadlock. But 17th Circuit Court Judge Christina Mims told them to keep working towards a verdict. On Thursday she accepted the jury was deadlocked and said she'd declare a mistrial.
Kent County Prosecutor Christopher Becker said he would need some time to decide whether to retry the case. “I’m not going to let this (decision) drag out," he added.
Family wants a retrial
Patrick Lyoya’s parents and a lawyer for the family expressed disappointment over the mistrial decision, but they said they plan to continue fighting for justice for their son.
“I didn’t give up on my son,” said Patrick’s mother Dorcas Lyoya through translator Israel Siku. “And we are not going to be tired until when we find justice for our son.”
The family and their legal team praised Becker for taking on the case at a press conference following the mistrial decision.
“Prosecutor Becker in this case did something that very few prosecutors have the guts to do in the United States today, let alone in West Michigan,” said attorney Ven Johnson, who represents the Lyoya family in a separate civil lawsuit in federal court.
He said the family is encouraging Becker to move forward with a retrial.
Both of Patrick’s parents said it was painful to hear Christopher Schurr’s testimony when the former police officer took the stand in his own defense.
“It seemed like the way that he portrayed himself, he had no remorse, he had no guilt, he didn’t care that he took the life of a human being,” said Dorcas through her translator. “It seemed like he only killed an animal — that’s how he presented himself. Because basically he did not show any emotion that he was wrong for what he did.”
Schurr did remain mostly calm during more than two hours of testifying in his own defense during the trial, at times wiping at his eyes. His defense attorney, Matt Borgula, said Schurr never wanted to take a life.
"And this was the most difficult thing he’s ever had to deal with — that decision in that split second," Borgula said.
While Schurr is not convicted, Borgula said there were no winners in the case.
"And we cannot declare victory because there really is no winning here," Borgula said. "A man died and that is a very serious thing.”
Regardless of whether prosecutors choose to move forward with a retrial, attorney Ven Johnson said, his team will be pursuing civil charges against Schurr. He challenged the defense’s use of Patrick’s possession of the taser as a valid reason for deadly force.
“When you create a danger by doing something against your training, you can’t then turn around and blame Patrick.”
Supporters react outside
A small crowd of about a dozen people gathered outside the Kent County Courthouse, chanting “Justice for Patrick” as the Lyoya family left in tears.
Lyoya supporter Shaunte Paul said she was both devastated and surprised by the outcome.
“They don’t take four days to figure out whether someone is guilty or not,” Shante Paul said. “Anytime you’re laying on your stomach execution style, you have no way of getting out of that. Patrick didn’t even see it coming, just like we didn’t see this coming, and it came.”
Outside the courthouse, Constance Rainey said Thursday's mistrial ultimately demonstrates that police officers won’t be held accountable for their actions.
“It's just sad and I’m getting kind of nauseous about this situation because we have hearts and we come to support, but the police don’t talk to the community at all,” Rainey said.
Schurr shot Lyoya in the back of the head in a struggle that started with a traffic stop. Schurr said he feared for his life after Lyoya gained control of his taser.
Prosecutors said Lyoya never harmed Schurr and was just trying to get away.
Video of killing a key issue during trial
For more than three years, people have been able to see what happened that day. The city released four videos of the incident, which started as a traffic stop. Only one, a witness' cell phone video, shows the shooting itself.
In it, Patrick Lyoya is on the grass on his hands and knees, with Schurr on top of him, pressing down. They’d been in a struggle for more than two minutes after Lyoya tried to run. Schurr tries to tase him, but Lyoya grabs the taser, and they struggle over it. Then, as Schurr is on top of him, Schurr reaches for his gun, he shouts “Drop the taser,” and he fires a single bullet into the back of Patrick Lyoya’s head.
Lyoya dies instantly.
Jurors watched this video over and over during the six days of testimony in the trial.
"I hope we aren’t getting calloused — calloused in the fact that, how many times did we watch the video of another person, Patrick, dying, over and over again?” Christopher Becker, the Kent County prosecutor, said to the jury during his closing arguments Monday, May 5.
"It wasn’t TV. It’s not movies. This is a real man, a human being, who was shot in the back of the head in April of 2022, and we watched it over and over. He’s got a family. He’s got loved ones," Becker said.
That family, including Patrick Lyoya's parents, Peter and Dorcas Lyoya, has been in court for most of the trial. They, too, had to watch the video of him dying. Over and over.
But the view of the videos in court this past week has been different from what most people have already seen.
Control over Schurr's taser
Schurr’s defense team hired a forensic video analyst, who zoomed in to a view of Patrick Lyoya’s hands in the seconds before he was killed.
That established for jurors a key point in his defense: Lyoya didn’t just grab at Schurr’s taser. Lyoya had Schurr’s taser.
Bob McFarland is the video analyst. He showed jurors a version of the video with a yellow box in the corner with a zoomed-in view of Lyoya’s hands
“That particular portion there, I magnified what you can see in the smaller box in the video, and that was to capture the taser in the hand of Mr. Lyoya.”
He holds the taser by the handle.
On the fifth day of the trial, Schurr took the stand in his own defense. He wore a blue suit, spoke calmly, and at points wiped at his eyes while videos of the incident played.
He told jurors he knew Lyoya had full control of the taser.
"One of the main reasons I brought the taser into it is cause I had no energy left to begin with and we then get into a struggle over it for I don't know how long. And I'm — I'm running on fumes," Schurr said.
He said he felt Lyoya trying to turn to get out from under him. He was afraid that if he turned, and used the taser, Lyoya could then take his gun, and shoot him.
His attorney, Mark Dodge, questioned him on the stand.
"So what did you do next?"
"I shot him," Schurr responded.
"Why?"
"I believed if I didn’t do it at that time, I wasn’t going to go home," Schurr concluded.
Chris Becker, the prosecutor, told jurors even if all this was true, it still didn’t justify shooting Lyoya in the back of the head.
“He grabbed my taser, and I’m tired. That’s not enough. That is not enough to justify taking another person’s life," Becker said.
Ultimately, this jury was unable to agree if the shooting was justified.
