Patrick Lioja was “executed” by police, the family and supporters of the 26-year-old black man said, a day after Michigan authorities released a video showing a police officer shooting Lioja in the head while he was face down.
Lioja, whose family hails from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was fatally shot dead on April 4 after a traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about 240 km (150 miles) northwest of Detroit.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Lioja’s father, Peter Lioja, said he never imagined his eldest son could be killed by a police officer in the United States. “When I saw the video, my heart was deeply broken,” he said through an interpreter.
“It simply came to our notice then. “My life was Patrick, my son,” Peter Lioja told reporters.
“To see that my son was killed as an animal by this policeman, to see this video that they showed, I see that I have no life, I see that my heart is broken,” he said. “I beg for justice. I beg for justice for Patrick.
Police in Grand Rapids released footage of the fatal shooting on April 4 this week [Grand Rapids Police/Handout via Reuters]
Lioja’s assassination sparked protests and renewed calls for an end to police violence against blacks in the United States, where the Black Lives Matter protests have been taking place since 2020. That same year, an officer killed another unarmed black man, George Floyd, during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparking widespread anger and demands for change.
Citing the need for transparency, Grand Rapids police released videos Wednesday showing the fatal shooting, including critical footage taken by a passenger in Lioya’s car that morning.
They show Lioja getting out of the car on a rainy street, seemingly confused and asking “What did I do?” As the employee repeatedly asks for a driver’s license and orders him to return to the car.
The video shows Leia fleeing from the police officer who stopped him for driving with a registration number that is not on the vehicle. They fought in front of several houses, and the officer repeatedly ordered Lioya to “release” his stun gun, insisting at one point: “Throw the stun gun!
Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said on Wednesday that the battle for Taser lasted about 90 seconds. At the last moment, the officer was on top of Lioya, sometimes kneeling on his back to subdue him.
“From my point of view in the video, Taser was deployed twice. “Taser has not made contact,” Winstrom told reporters. “And Mr. Lioya was shot in the head. However, this is the only information I have. “
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, prominent US civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said the videos showed “unnecessary, unjustified, [and] excessive use of fatal force. You see a police officer escalate a minor traffic stop in a deadly execution.
There was no reason for the police to shoot Lioya, Krump said, adding that the family called on the authorities to accuse the officer “of the full law of killing their son, of breaking their hearts, of making his young children orphans.”
“The video shows us that this is, as his mother and father said, an execution. “There’s no way you can try to twist it or justify it,” Crump told reporters. “That’s why we want justice for Patrick.”
Police in Grand Rapids have placed an unnamed gunman on administrative leave and asked Michigan police to investigate.
Kent County prosecutors told CNN on Wednesday that they would decide on possible criminal charges once the investigation is complete.
U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence of Michigan on Wednesday called for “full accountability and transparency.”
“For black Americans in Michigan and across the country, we are all too aware of this injustice. We don’t need another hike. We don’t need another hashtag. We do not need thoughts and prayers. We need action, “she said in a statement.
Protesters march in response to Lioja’s assassination in Grand Rapids on April 13, 2022. [Cody Scanlan/Holland Sentinel/USA TODAY via Reuters]
Last year, activists called on the US Congress to pass legislation to reform the police, named after George Floyd, an unarmed black man whose murder at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparked protests across the country.
But Republicans and Democrats in the Senate could not reach an agreement.
During a news conference Thursday, Robert Womack, a member of the Kent County Michigan Board of Commissioners, read the names of blacks killed by U.S. police in recent years: “Breona Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbury, Patrick Lioya.”
“Since we came to this country, the United States of America, which we call home, we have only asked you to let us live. We asked you to let us breathe, “Womak said.
“They have just passed the anti-lynching bill; Is a law needed for humanity to understand that certain marginalized communities do not deserve to be lynched, shot or executed?
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