The horrific death of Patrick Lyoya at the hands of a Grand Rapids police officer was not just preventable, it was predictable. GRPD has a long history of racist policing. The department relies on an enforcement-only approach to public safety, tolerates violent solutions to nonviolent situations, and fails to hold officers and those they report to accountable. Mr. Lyoya, a father of two small children, would be alive today if city officials and the GRPD had listened to the longstanding calls from advocates to reinvest in, rather than over-police, communities of color. The following is a timeline setting out some of the most flagrant examples of GRPD’s long history of abuse of Black and Brown people, and the dangerous lack of accountability that allows those abuses to continue.

June 2014

A Black 15-year-old is badly beaten and bludgeoned with a flashlight by a GRPD officer.

April 2015

The ACLU sues the GRPD over its Orwellian “no trespass letter” program that targeted people like Jacob Manyong, an African immigrant arrested and charged with trespassing because the back tire of his car crossed the property of a private business as he drove on an adjacent public lot. An outside expert’s analysis of GRPD records reveals that 70% of officer-initiated stops under the program were of Black people in a city where, according to the most recent census data, only 18% of the population is Black. Both state and federal courts found that arrests under the program were unconstitutional. 

September 2015          

GRPD officers responding to noise complaints at a large house party forcibly arrest the host and eight others – all Black residents. One guest is tased. Six of the nine people arrested file excessive force complaints with the GRPD. Up to 35 officers are on the scene at one time.

March 2017     

GRPD officers pull over and aim guns at five unarmed Black boys, ages 12-15.  

April 2017        

A study shows Black drivers are more than twice as likely to be stopped by the GRPD than white drivers.

December 2017

A GRPD officer points a gun at and handcuffs an unarmed 11-year-old Black girl, Honestie Hodges.

August 2018    

At least six GRPD patrol cars and as many officers handcuffed unarmed 11-year-old twins and 17-year-old, all Black boys, at gunpoint.

September 2018

A GRPD officer shoots at a Black 14-year-old boy playing with a BB gun.

October 2018  

A 12-year-old Black girl is handcuffed at gunpoint by a GRPD officer, which the police chief describes as “appropriate”.

November 2018

A GRPD police captain wrongly calls Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a decorated Marine Corps veteran who was arrested with his U.S. passport on him after a mental health incident. Mr. Ramo-Gomez spends three days in immigration detention as a result.

March 2019     

Two Latino teens, who are jaywalking, are held at gunpoint by a GRPD officer.

March 2019     

GRPD officers pull a Black man out of a car and beat him.

March 2019     

The Michigan Department of Civil Rights holds hearings on racial discrimination by the GRPD. The MDCR’s investigation has not yet been completed.  

September 2019

After a court rules that records from a secret GRPD phone line—which officers believed was not being recorded—were subject to public records requests, Grand Rapids city administrators erase those recordings over the weekend rather than release the records.

March 2021     

A GRPD officer punches a Black man in the face at a traffic stop, and tells him, “You lucky you didn’t get killed.”

November 2021

The Michigan Supreme Court hears a case challenging the GRPD’s photograph and print program, under which Keyon Harrison, a Black 16-year-old, was fingerprinted after GRPD officers thought it suspicious that he helped another youth carry a toy fire truck, and Denishio Johnson, a Black 15-year-old, was similarly fingerprinted even though he likewise was never charged with a crime. An expert analysis of the program found that 75% of the officer-initiated encounters involved Black people while only 15% involved white people. This in a city where, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 65% of the population is white and only 18% is Black. A decision is pending.

December 2021

A GRPD officer accidentally fires his gun while pursuing a Black male, who is mistakenly suspected of stealing a vehicle. 

March 2022     

An audibly terrified pregnant woman asks more than a half dozen GRPD officers to stop pointing their guns at her in front of her house, after GRPD pursues her boyfriend for driving with no plates on his car. They are a Black couple.

April 2022   

Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese immigrant, is killed by Christopher Schurr, a Grand Rapids police officer, following a traffic stop purportedly conducted because of a license plate problem. Video shows Mr. Lyoya exiting his vehicle, apparently confused. The officer put a hand on him during a verbal exchange – which Mr.  Lyoya tries to walk away from.  It should have ended there. Instead, the officer follows and tackles Mr. Lyoya, pulling a taser as they struggle, striking Mr. Lyoya,  pinning him down, and then killing him with a point-blank shot to the back of the head. 

Accountability requires not just full transparency, but a commitment to fundamentally changing policing so that no more lives are lost. The city of Grand Rapids and GRPD must listen to the voices of Mr. Lyoya’s family and those at the forefront of this struggle about what they need in this time of crisis. We urgently call on the city of Grand Rapids, GRPD, and government officials to take the following immediate steps:

• A prosecutor outside of Kent County, who does not work regularly with the GRPD, must be appointed to handle this case, as is legally required in many states and is widely acknowledged to be best practice; 
• The community must have a seat at the table in the ongoing negotiations over the GRPD police union contracts, which have for far too long shielded officers from accountability and which do not reflect the community’s priorities for how to achieve public safety in Grand Rapids;
• Both the Civilian Appeal Board and the Office of Oversight and Public Accountability must be given the authority, resources, and funding to provide true civilian oversight and be able to affect real change; and
• The City and GRPD must respect the constitutional right of all people to protest this tragedy and exercise their freedom of speech without violence, threats or intimidation. 

We move forward in solidarity with our coalition partners, Greater Grand Rapids NAACP, LINC UP, Urban Core Collective, and Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

This op-ed was originally published by The Detroit Free Press

Fifty-four years to the day after an assassin’s bullet took the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., a Grand Rapids police officer placed a gun against the head of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya, pulled the trigger and snatched the father of two small children away from his family forever.

It was a far cry from Dr. King’s most cherished hopes and dreams. Mr. Lyoya did not have to die.

Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant, was pulled over by the officer, purportedly because his license plate was not registered to the vehicle he was driving.  Lyoya exited his vehicle and, after a verbal exchange with the officer, began to walk away.

It should have ended there.  The officer could have questioned Lyoya’s passenger about his identity, address and any other information needed to make an arrest later, under calm and controlled circumstances. The officer could have impounded the vehicle and engaged with Lyoya when he sought to reclaim it at a police facility.

Instead, the officer followed Lyoya and initiated a protracted grappling contest during which a taser was deployed and blows were struck by the officer. It all ended with the fatal gunshot to the head.

Revising the rules of engagement

Law enforcement culture is grounded in strategies that demand full assertion of authority and control over “civilians” by any means and at all costs. Nevertheless, when it comes to pursuit of suspects who flee, a growing number of police departments are concluding that such challenges to authority need not prompt officers to try to “win” the contest.

Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago and other cities have policies that require officers to balance the need for pursuit against the risk of harm to officers, the suspect, and the public. Officers are further required to determine whether there are alternatives to a foot chase for purposes of apprehending a suspect, particularly in cases where the suspect’s identity is known. 

In fact, Baltimore’s foot pursuit policy flatly prohibits chases in cases where is a curfew violation, a citation-only violation, or a non-arrestable offense.

Concerns don’t end with the act of pursuit. Progressive police policies also address the issue of what happens after a suspect is apprehended. When it comes to foot chases, officers who believe they have risked life and limb to chase a disobedient, uncooperative suspect will almost certainly be enraged, and the urge to impose summary punitive justice on a captured suspect might be overwhelming for some officers, particularly if they are – like too many police officers – indifferent to the value of Black life.

The fact that methods of de-escalating conflicts are receiving ever-increasing attention in the law enforcement community reflects an awareness that violence often occurs when encounters are tense, and emotions are raw. If arrests and other law enforcement measures that place members of the public at risk are postponed until emotions and tempers have cooled, the chances are greater that the encounter will end peacefully.

For these reasons, it makes sense for officers to refrain from chases altogether when a suspect poses no danger to himself or anyone else. 

Building a better police force

Police officers are trained to be soldiers. They learn to shoot, grapple and intimidate. Within their highly-charged environment, too often an “us against them” mentality takes hold, and certain communities – particularly communities of color – become enemy territories to be occupied and dominated simply because of unfounded stereotypes about Black criminality. It is a certain prescription for violence.

Breaking down a police culture that promotes confrontation, conflict, combat and “the chase” will require different types of officers. Most emergencies do not require soldiers.  More often, they require mental health professionals, drug treatment specialists, social workers, mediators, paramedics, auto mechanics, and professionals from various other disciplines.

While it is difficult to suggest anything positive that can come from Patrick Lyoya’s killing, his death must not be in vain. We must put an end to the brutal indifference to Black lives. 

A good start would be if Grand Rapids city officials and municipal officials throughout Michigan seriously consider significantly reducing the number of soldier-type police officers in their employ and hiring more professionals with  skills needed to respond to the nonviolent, non-criminal emergencies their departments more frequently confront.

Replacing significant numbers of soldier cops with emergency response professionals may be exactly what’s needed to eliminate a race-driven, aggressive police culture, and to make real at least part of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s grand dream.

Mark P. Fancher is the staff attorney for the Racial Justice Project of the ACLU of Michigan.

This op-ed was first featured in the Detroit News (subscribers only)

It’s been more than two weeks since a Grand Rapids Police Department officer pinned Patrick Lyoya to the ground and shot him in the head at point-blank range. The GRPD and the city have promised transparency and accountability and a full investigation. But despite calls from Lyoya’s grief-stricken family and from the traumatized and outraged Grand Rapids community, the officer’s name has been withheld. Why?

The official justification is that the officer has not been charged, and the names of suspects aren’t released. That’s an unsatisfying explanation because the names of suspects are released all the time when it would help the investigation. And that’s what it would do here.

Sure, there are times when investigators don’t disclose a name. Sometimes they don’t want suspects to know they are suspects. And sometimes investigators worry that a suspect may flee. That’s fair enough, but there’s no reason to think either of those reasons apply in this case.

In fact, investigators often release suspects’ names because investigators know that the public has relevant information. Take the recent public subway shooting in Brooklyn. The police almost immediately named a “person of interest,” asked for the public’s help, and even sent out alerts asking residents to share information about the suspect. The public’s response didn’t just give investigators and prosecutors lots of additional information, but actually led to an arrest.

Investigators here already know who killed Lyoya, and they know where to find him. But they still need the public’s help with the investigation. A full investigation — which is what we’ve been promised — doesn’t just focus on the final seconds before Lyoya was shot. And it doesn’t just focus on the minutes leading up to Lyoya’s death, where the officer unnecessarily escalated a simple traffic stop of a man with limited English proficiency who seemed clearly confused by what was happening.

A full investigation looks at the context. A full investigation asks: How did this officer treat Black people and other people of color? Did he have a history of aggressive stops? How did he treat immigrants? Has he used excessive force before? How did he act when he pulled over White motorists — did they, unlike Lyoya, get a friendly “license and registration, please”?

To answer these questions, investigators need the community’s help. And to provide that help, the community needs the officer’s name.

The GRPD has a long history of aggressive, violent and racist encounters with people of color. According to a 2017 study, Black drivers are more than twice as likely to be stopped by the GRPD than White drivers. GRPD officers have handcuffed and pulled guns on Black and Brown children, have racially profiled a Latino Marine Corp veteran who ended up in immigration detention (even though he had his U.S. passport on him when arrested), and have beaten motorists after traffic stops. In one such incident, a little over a year ago, an officer told a Black man who’d been punched in the face, “You lucky you didn’t get killed.”

It shouldn’t take luck to avoid death in traffic stop.

Because we don’t know the name of the officer who killed Lyoya, we don’t know how he fits into this pattern. It’s not enough for investigators to look at the officer’s personnel file. The GRPD’s powerful police union has negotiated a contract under which disciplinary records are only kept for two years. Even for that short window, however, records won’t exist for complaints that residents don’t file.

Many Grand Rapids victims of police misconduct see no point in filing complaints, because they have no confidence that the GRPD’s Internal Affairs Unit will be objective, or that the city’s weak Civilian Appeals Board will be able to do anything.

For example, after police Captain Curt Vanderkooi called immigration on Marine Corp veteran Jilmar Ramos-Gomez based simply on seeing his picture and hearing his name, Internal Affairs concluded that the captain hadn’t violated the city’s impartial policing policy.

And after the Civilian Appeal Board found there was in fact bias, the union successfully got an arbitrator to reverse the captain’s 20-hour suspension. If that’s what happens in a high-profile case, you can understand why residents think it is useless to file complaints when they’ve been mistreated.

Any past misconduct by the officer matters to the investigation of Patrick Lyoya’s killing.

To find out about this officer’s history interacting with the community, investigators are going to have to ask the public for help — just as they do all the time in lots of other cases. We need an investigation that is thorough and complete, which it won’t be if investigators don’t try to understand the context.

Withholding the officer’s identity is damaging the integrity of the investigation. He should be named.

Miriam Aukerman is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Michigan. Aukerman litigates on a broad range of civil liberties issues, with a particular focus on immigrant rights, poverty and criminal justice She is based in Grand Rapids.