You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Family Demands Criminal Charges for Grand Rapids Officer Who Killed Patrick Lyoya

HeadlineApr 15, 2022

In Michigan, the family of Patrick Lyoya is demanding that the white Grand Rapids police officer who killed the 26-year-old Congolese refugee be fired and charged with a crime. City officials have yet to name the officer, who is seen in video pulling his service pistol from a holster and firing a fatal shot into Lyoya’s head after a struggle. Patrick’s father, Peter Lyoya, said through an interpreter that he and his family had escaped war and persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo only to see Patrick killed “like an animal” by a Michigan police officer.

Peter Lyoya: “My heart is really deeply broken. I didn’t know, I didn’t believe that in this country that there is a genocide in this country. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that here in America there can be an execution style to kill someone.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top