By Isabella Volmert and Ed White
Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a Michigan jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict in the second-degree murder trial of a police officer who fatally shot Patrick Lyoya following a traffic stop in 2022.
The result came at the start of the fourth day of deliberations and was a partial victory for Christopher Schurr, who still could face another trial.
The mistrial came a day after three former Memphis police officers were acquitted in the beating death of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop.
Schurr shot Lyoya while on top of the 26-year-old, who was facedown on the ground. Schurr told jurors he feared for his life after Lyola gained control of his TASER during an intense struggle in a residential neighborhood.
Videos were a key part of trial and were repeatedly shown to the jury, including critical images recorded by a passenger in the car. The struggle with the TASER, which deploys electrically charged probes, was central to Schurr’s defense.
Judge Christina Mims had urged the jurors to keep working after they said Tuesday that they were struggling to reach a consensus. Besides murder, they also could consider a lesser charge of manslaughter.
“Thank you for your time,” Mims said as she ended the trial.
Lyoya’s family wants another trial.
“It hurts my family, my wife. We are bleeding. We are in pain,” Lyoya’s father, Peter Lyoya, said of the outcome, speaking through an interpreter. “We’ll continue to fight until we get true justice for Patrick.”
Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker said he would need more time before deciding whether to pursue a second trial, adding that he won’t “bow to public pressure.”
“We thought we put a good case forward. Obviously the jury thought differently,” Becker said.
The shooting happened on April 4, 2022, when Schurr stopped a Nissan Altima for improper license plates and requested Lyoya’s driver’s license.
Body camera and dash camera footage showed Lyoya running and the officer tackling him. They struggled and the officer attempted to deploy his TASER, which Lyoya was able to grab. Schurr repeatedly demanded he stop resisting and drop the Taser, then fired one bullet into his head.
Schurr testified he was “running on fumes” after the fight and in great fear because a TASER can cause “excruciating pain.”
“I believed that if I hadn’t done it at that time, I wasn’t going to go home,” Schurr said of shooting Lyoya.
The prosecutor, however, argued that the TASER had already been deployed twice by Schurr and could only be used in a different mode if Lyoya had decided to turn it against the officer.
Records show his driver’s license was revoked at the time and there was an arrest warrant for him in a domestic violence case, though Schurr didn’t know it. An autopsy revealed his blood-alcohol level was three times above the legal limit for driving.
Besides Schurr’s account of that day, jurors heard from witnesses who were described as experts in the use of force.
Defense experts said the decision to use deadly force was justified because the exhausted officer could have been seriously injured if Lyoya had used the Taser. The prosecutor’s experts, however, said Schurr had other choices, including simply letting the driver run.
Schurr, a seven-year veteran of the police department, was fired shortly after he was charged.
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White reported from Detroit.
