The Grand Rapids Police Department in Michigan released several videos on Wednesday of the fatal police shooting of a Black man during what police said was a traffic stop.
The videos, from a body-worn camera, an in-car camera, a cellphone, and a home surveillance system, show the final moments of Patrick Lyoya’s life.
Lyoya, 26, was killed on the morning of April 4, 2022, after what Chief Eric Winstrom previously described as a “lengthy struggle” during a traffic stop.
Some members of Lyoya’s family and their language interpreter who had seen a video of the encounter before Wednesday’s release said he was killed “execution-style.”
They said Lyoya was face down on the ground when he was shot in the back of the head.
“I saw the video. I could not sleep. The boy was on the floor. The cop was on his knees, pulled out the gun, and shot him in the head,” Israel Siku, the Lyoya family’s interpreter, said Sunday at a community forum at Renaissance Church of God in Christ in Grand Rapids. The family’s native language is Swahili.
Lyoya immigrated with his family to the U.S. in 2014 from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, reported MLive, the website of a family of Michigan newspapers.
In an interview Monday, Siku said the family is “still grieving, confused and heartbroken.”
Lyoya leaves behind two children under 2 years old.
Winstrom said the videos and audio will be “unedited, but some video images may have been redacted/blurred to ensure privacy.”
Demands for the release of the videos have grown since Lyoya’s death, and spurred rallies and protests throughout Grand Rapids, including one during a city commission meeting on Tuesday night.
For hours, a long line of community members in a packed City Hall room expressed their anger and frustrations to the city’s top brass.
Several called to defund the police and for city leaders to resign, including Mayor Rosalynn Bliss and the city’s manager, Mark Washington.
