Three police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd have just been convicted. Now the next case is already stirring Americans: a white police officer shot 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya in the back of the head in Grand Rapids, a small town in Michigan.
It is considered another example of police violence against dark-skinned people. Hundreds of protesters vented their anger outside the Grand Rapids Police Station on Wednesday and Thursday, shouting, “Stop killing us!” Like after the death of George Floyd, a police officer knelt on his neck for minutes. The protests flared up after local police released various video footage of the incident on Wednesday.
It shows the police officer stopping Lyoya in his car to check his papers. Apparently the number plates were wrong. Lyoya looks confused, doesn’t show his driver’s license and suddenly tries to run away. The policeman follows him, there is a scuffle, the two fall to the ground. Lyoya grabs the cop’s taser and comes to a prone position. The policeman sitting on him draws his gun – and shoots Lyoya in the head from behind.
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” Lyoya’s brother Thomas said Thursday at a news conference attended by his mother and father. The 26-year-old came to the United States from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2014 to work there.
Appeal to Joe Biden
Lyoya’s relatives hired well-known lawyer Ben Crump. He has represented many prominent families of people who have been victims of police violence, such as the families of Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake – and those of George Floyd. “His family came to our country to live the American dream. Instead, they are living a traumatic American nightmare as they have to bury their loved one,” wrote Crump in a tweet on the Lyoya case.
The Grand Rapids Police Department has put the officer on leave and called in the Michigan Police Department to investigate the killing. Pressure is also increasing on US President Joe Biden to implement his election promise of police reform. “Another black man has been killed by police and the officer in this video must be held accountable,” wrote the NAACP. The latest case is all the more heartbreaking because laws have already been proposed that should have prevented such acts.
However, a law named after George Floyd failed due to opposition from Republicans in the Senate. The civil rights organization is now demanding that Biden implement the police reforms contained therein bypassing parliament with so-called executive orders. “We understand that executive orders are not a substitute for good law, but we must do everything in our power to protect our community.”
More or less police?
Biden already held out the prospect of such a police reform on his own authority last fall. So far, however, it is not available. Police representatives sharply criticized a first version that found its way to the public. Biden is walking a fine line: In his State of the Union address, he announced that he would make more money available for police work because the crime rate is rising steeply, especially in the cities, and is one of the biggest concerns of voters. Biden clearly distanced himself from the “Defund the Police” movement, which wants to turn off the money supply to the police. At the same time, however, he promises less violent police work.
For example, part of his reform should be a blacklist of offending police officers like that Washington Post reported. However, the most sensitive points in the White House remain controversial, such as stricter rules for the use of force on duty or even a relaxation of the immunity provisions that protect police officers from prosecution. It is obviously doubtful whether Biden would even have the legal basis for this with a presidential decree.
However, he has so far had little to show for police reforms – quite different from what was promised during the election campaign. He was impressed by the “Black Lives Matter” protests that shook the United States in the 2020 pandemic and election year. They were a reaction to the violent death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. The main perpetrator, Derek Chauvin, has since been sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. The proceedings against the accomplices have not all been completed.