A federal judge officially denied the request of a Michigan police officer who shot 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head to dismiss a civil suit against him.
On Friday, Michigan U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney ruled that a jury will need to decide whether former police officer Christopher Schurr violated the civil rights of Lyoya.
The decision was made following review of the video footage of the murder, with the judge affirming that Schurr’s account is not consistent with what was shown. Schurr has been attempting to use self-defense to get immunity within the case.
He alleges that he shot Lyoya in 2022 because he had gotten control of his Taser. Schurr had stopped him at a traffic stop after claiming that the license plate did not match a car. After a foot chase and a two-minute confrontation once Lyoya declined to get back into the car, the police officer can be seen on top of Lyoya, who was pinned on the ground, shooting him in the back of the head.
Video footage, however, showed that Lyoya did not possess the Taser and was unarmed. He was conscious until Schurr proceeded to shoot him.
An independent autopsy needed to be performed by Lyoya’s family for the truth to come out. Schurr was promptly charged with second-degree murder. The case, however, was thrown out in 2025 after jurors could not reach a unanimous decision.
The civil trial filed by Lyoya’s family will now proceed following the judge’s ruling. He said that, at this stage, he will view the evidence in the family’s favor.
“The record suggests that (Schurr) shot a man who posed no threat of violence, held no weapon, and who was under Defendant’s physical control,” Maloney said per ABC News. “That violates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures.”
Following Lyoya’s murder in 2022, several calls for reform were made. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center and LINC UP all released a joint statement calling for the end of “systemic indifference to Black lives” by police officers across the U.S.
Per the NAACP, Black Americans are five times more likely than white Americans to be stopped by the police for no just reason. Overall, they are approximately three times more likely to be murdered during these encounters than any other demographic, recording a statistic of 100 murders by the police per 1 million people in the U.S.
As of July 22 of this year, approximately 746 people have been killed by the police this year.
Out of all the victims, approximately 175 people were Black Americans.
