It’s unlikely many people know the following facts about Patrick Lyoya, the man who was shot in the back of the head by Grand Rapids Police Officer Christopher Schurr on April 4, 2022. Schurr’s murder trial is happening this week.
Lyoya’s blood alcohol level the night he was killed was .29, well above the legal limit of .08. It wasn’t the first time Lyoya was drunk driving. It wasn’t even the first time police caught him. In 2015, 2018, and 2021, Lyoya was charged with DWI offenses.
But according to media reports, Lyoya wasn’t pulled over for DWI that night. This time, the license plates didn’t match the car he was driving. That’s a red flag for police officers. Stolen cars have their license plates changed for obvious reasons.
Lyoya had been arrested and pled guilty for different traffic and vehicle-related charges previously. One of the times he pled out in a deal to “misdemeanor possession of a master key.” That means Lyoya likely had a key that had been filed down, making it a “master key,” because in some instances, filed down keys work on numerous cars of the same make—such as Hondas or Saturns.
Police call them “shaved keys,” and they are the tools of a car thief.
The license plate could have been changed because Lyoya didn’t want police to know it was him driving. He already had a warrant out for his arrest. On April 4, 2017, he was arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence, knowingly assaulting a pregnant individual—his girlfriend.
He pled guilty.
Lyoya was on probation when he was pulled over by Schurr and had been arrested eight times since 2015, according to Michigan State Police records.
The Associated Press published a story Monday that was picked up by news sites around the world, including CNN and Yahoo News. Ironically, it was titled, “What to know about the trial of an ex-Michigan officer charged in the killing of a Black motorist.”
It contained none of Lyoya’s criminal history. Instead, under the subhead “Who was Patrick Lyoya?” the article stated:
“Following his arrival, Lyoya ultimately joined a list of names of Black immigrants who sought better lives in the U.S. only to suffer abuse or death at the hands of law enforcement. Before him, there was Botham Jean, Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima, all men whose cases increased awareness around the global impact of systemic racism in policing.”
The article—written by AP reporter Isabella Volmert, with a contributing tagline to Fernanda Figueroa—is journalistic malpractice. Volmert and the AP headquarters didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
The criminal history of Lyoya used in this article is based on research I did three years ago. It involved publicly available records on the state’s Offender Tracking Information System (OTIS) as well as Michigan State Police’s Internet Criminal History Tool.
The ICHAT report cost $10. The OTIS database has been scrubbed of Lyoya’s crimes because the Michigan Legislature permitted removal of offender’s information from OTIS after three years had elapsed from the discharge date of the crime.
There has been an effort to shield Lyoya’s criminal history from the start.
The most egregious was the secretary of state’s response in April 2022 to information requests on Lyoya’s driving record.
An April 15, 2022, statement from the secretary of state said:
“The Michigan Department of State condemns the killing of Patrick Lyoya. Moreover, the Department will no longer provide the driving record and personal information of Mr. Lyoya to the media, nor will it provide to media such records and information of other victims of violence.”
“Unfortunately, the department provided Mr. Lyoya’s record to three media outlets before recognizing that it was being included as an irrelevant detail that wrongly suggests he is culpable for being shot in the back of the head by a Grand Rapids police officer,” the office said.
“Additionally, the department will continue ongoing review and revision of the policies by which it provides the personal information of any Michigan resident to third parties,” the statement continued. “As we have stated previously, current Michigan law is very broad, and we believe the state Legislature should strengthen the law to demonstrate that they value the privacy of Michiganders over corporate profits. In the absence of legislative action, we will continue our own review.”
That statement from the secretary of state was grotesquely inappropriate and an incredible overreach by state bureaucrats. It is not the role of the secretary of state’s office to submit their own editorial judgment on news organizations.
The secretary of state eventually reversed its decision, which was appropriate.
Many of the news articles on Lyoya have painted an inauthentic portrait of him.
Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist quoted Lyoya’s father in a press release.
“His father Peter described his son as a generous and caring man whom he wants to be remembered peacefully,” Gilchrist said. “Patrick was a loving father, a loyal friend, and a proud member of the Grand Rapids community who enjoyed sharing fellowship and culture with those around him.”
The Washington Post, BBC, and Time, along with so many other news organizations, all parroted the same narrative that Lyoya was an immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo who came to the U.S. to “pursue the American Dream.”
But that’s not the life Lyoya led, according to the police records.
As this trial goes on, the truth is more important than the biased media messaging.
Tom Gantert is a contributing writer for Michigan Enjoyer.
