Michigan chief IDs officer who killed Patrick Lyoya

By John Flesher, Bernard Condon and Ed White | Related Press

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Michigan police officer who killed Patrick Lyoya with a shot to the top has been with the Grand Rapids division for seven years, after starring as a pole vaulter at a small school and marrying his longtime girlfriend throughout a church mission journey to Africa.

Christopher Schurr’s title had been circulating since his face was seen in movies of the April 4 confrontation with Lyoya, a Black man. However his identification wasn’t publicly acknowledged till Monday when the police division modified course and launched it, three days after passionate calls for on the funeral of the 26-year-old native of Congo.

Chief Eric Winstrom mentioned he was performing “within the curiosity of transparency, to cut back ongoing hypothesis, and to keep away from any additional confusion.”

Lyoya, who was unarmed, was face down on the bottom when he was shot, moments after a site visitors cease in Michigan’s second-largest metropolis. Schurr was on high of him and may be heard on video demanding that he take his hand off the white officer’s Taser.

A forensic pathologist who performed an post-mortem on the household’s request mentioned the gun was pressed to Lyoya’s head when he was shot.

The Related Press left a telephone message Monday searching for remark from Schurr, who stays off the job whereas state police examine the capturing. The AP reached out to him a number of instances over the previous week, together with knocking on the door of his suburban dwelling. There was no reply.

Schurr, 31, grew up in Byron Middle, simply south of Grand Rapids, and joined the police in 2015 after attending Siena Heights College in Adrian, Michigan, the place he studied accounting and was a star pole vaulter.

He gained an NAIA nationwide championship with a vault clearing 17 ft, ¾ inches and, as a junior, the college’s scholar-athlete award, based on Siena Top’s alumni journal.

Schurr was lively in his church when he was youthful, taking missionary journeys for Corinth Reformed Church in Byron Middle, based on a 2014 story in Vaulter Journal, a publication devoted to the game.

Schurr mentioned he was getting married that 12 months, and couldn’t afford to have a marriage celebration and take a separate journey to Kisi, Kenya, to construct properties, so he determined to get married there.

“We’re going to do a marriage their type,” Schurr instructed the journal. “I’ve an African outfit already and my fiancee will select some material and he or she’ll make a Kenyan-style costume.”

A Twitter account along with his title that seems to belong to the officer follows a couple of nationwide observe and subject athletes, together with a pole vaulter. There are not any Tweets related to the account. A Fb web page with Schurr’s title seems to have been taken down.

A school teammate, Ryan Hopson, mentioned Schurr was mild-mannered and quiet in school, pleasant and fast with a smile.

“He all the time had a great vibe,” Hopson mentioned. “I can’t say nothing unhealthy about him. I actually can’t. … I used to be shocked to see it was him, however I don’t know what it’s prefer to be a cop and have my life on the road.”

The police division’s resolution to launch Schurr’s title was a reversal. After the discharge of video of the capturing, Winstrom insisted he would withhold the officer’s title until he was charged with against the law. It was described as a long-standing apply that utilized to the general public in addition to metropolis staff.

However Lyoya’s household and Black leaders, together with the Rev. Al Sharpton, repeatedly pressed for it, together with at Lyoya’s funeral, which drew 1,000 folks Friday.

“We would like his title!” Sharpton shouted, saying authorities can’t set a precedent of withholding the names of officers who kill folks until the officer is charged.

Ven Johnson, an lawyer for the household, mentioned it’s essential that Lyoya’s dad and mom now know Schurr’s title, although he scoffed on the police chief citing “transparency.”

“It’s not clear whenever you cover one thing for 3 weeks. It’s fairly the other,” Johnson mentioned. “It’s cops caring for the cops as an alternative of treating it like a traditional investigation.”

After Lyoya’s funeral, Grand Rapids Metropolis Supervisor Mark Washington acknowledged the demand for the officer’s title and mentioned he would focus on the matter with Winstrom and metropolis employment officers.

Condon reported from New York. White reported from Detroit. AP reporter Corey Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and AP researchers Rhonda Shafner and Randy Herschaft in New York additionally contributed.