Patrick Lyoya‘s family demands the release of video showing police shooting

Patrick Lyoya’s Family Demands Video Of “Execution” Be Released

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We’ve been saying it a lot lately but it bears repeating. Do not let these recent convictions of police officers lull you into thinking that things are different now. Police can still very much get away with murder despite the summer of protests and heightened sense of awareness regarding violence against Black bodies.

According to Yahoo! News, another maddening example of just how protected police are against accountability lies in the case of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya. The Congolese man was killed by a Grand Rapids police officer on April 4 following an attempted traffic stop. The car that Lyoya was driving had a license plate that didn’t correspond and jumped out the car to flee police interaction. When the cop caught up to him, he was slammed on the ground and shot in the back of the head according to family members who were shown the dash cam video.

“To see that the police officer hold my son and kill him like an animal,” Lyoya said. “When he got my son he put him on the ground and his hand was behind his back. From that moment he took the gun and he shoot him in the back of the head.”

Let the cop tell it, the gun just “went off” after the men got into a physical confrontation. The Kent County prosecutor has asked that the video remain out of the public eye until the investigation is complete. Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom has vowed to release the footage by noon this Friday, April 15.

We gon’ see.