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Michigan prosecutor charges officer with murder in Lyoya case
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A prosecutor filed a second-degree murder charge Thursday against the Michigan police officer who killed Patrick Lyoya, a Black man who was on the ground when he was shot in the back of the head following a traffic stop captured on a bystander’s phone.
Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker announced his decision against Grand Rapids Officer Christopher Schurr, who killed Lyoya minutes after a traffic stop on April 4. Video from a passenger in the car captured the final chilling moments.
Schurr fired the fatal shot while Lyoya was on the ground, demanding that the 26-year-old refugee from Congo “let go” of the officer’s Taser.
“The death was not justified or excused, for example, by self defense,” the prosecutor said, reciting the elements of second-degree murder.
Defense lawyers said the shooting was not “murder but an unfortunate tragedy” during a volatile situation.
“Mr. Lyoya gained full control of a police officer’s weapon while resisting arrest, placing Officer Schurr in fear of great bodily harm or death,” Matt Borgula and Mark Dodge said in a written statement.
Becker’s decision to charge Schurr won praise from some of his previous critics. Black activists in April wanted Becker, a Republican, to give the investigation to the Democratic Michigan attorney general, saying the Kent County prosecutor was too close to police.
“I was shocked, to be quite honest. I was absolutely shocked. I didn’t expect that,” said Cle Jackson, president of the Greater Grand Rapids NAACP, who previously had said that an unbiased investigation by Becker’s office was not possible.
“We’re thankful for Chris having that fortitude to bring the charge that we feel comfortable with. Now we’ll have to continue to fight in the courts,” Jackson said.
Schurr, 31, was released from jail Friday after appearing in court by video. Bond was set at $100,000, and a not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf.
China blasts WHO report: China on Friday attacked the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated as a leak from a laboratory as a politically motivated lie, after the World Health Organization recommended in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe is needed into whether a lab accident may be to blame.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian also rejected accusations that China had not fully cooperated with investigators, saying it welcomed a science-based probe but rejected any political manipulation.
He also reiterated calls for a probe into “highly suspicious laboratories such as Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina” in the United States, where China has suggested, without evidence, that the U.S. was developing the coronavirus as a bioweapon.
“The lab-leak theory is totally a lie concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes, which has nothing to do with science,” Zhao said.
Pope cancels trip: Pope Francis canceled a planned July trip to Africa on doctors’ orders because of knee problems, the Vatican said Friday, dashing hopes of the faithful there and raising further questions about the health and mobility of the 85-year-old pontiff.
The Vatican said the July 2-7 trip to Congo and South Sudan would be rescheduled “to a later date to be determined.” The visit had sought to promote peace in two African countries long wrestling with deadly violence.
Francis has been using a wheelchair for a month due to strained ligaments in his right knee that have made walking and standing difficult and painful. He has refused so far to get surgery, and has instead received injections, kept the knee as immobile as possible and walked with a cane or the help of an aide.
Francis also has a July 24-30 visit to Canada scheduled. The Vatican statement on Friday said nothing about that trip.
Air Force One plan scrapped:
President Joe Biden’s administration has scrapped former President Donald Trump’s red, white and blue design for the new generation of presidential aircraft after an Air Force review suggested it would raise costs and delay the delivery of the new jets.
Boeing is modifying two Boeing 747-800 aircraft that will bear the Air Force One call sign when the president is aboard, replacing the existing fleet of two aging Boeing 747-200 aircraft. Trump, in 2018, directed that the new jumbo jets shed the iconic Kennedy-era robin’s egg blue and white design.
Politico first reported that the Air Force study of the new paint job had concluded that the dark shade of blue Trump proposed for the plane’s underbelly and engines would have created heating issues for the aircraft, requiring costly redesigns and additional delays to the already behind-schedule program.
Paris attacks trial: French prosecutors on Friday laid out their sentencing demands in the Paris trial of 20 men suspected of critical roles in France’s worst peacetime attack, the Islamic State massacres that killed 130 people in 2015. For Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving attacking jihadi, prosecutors demanded a life sentence.
Three prosecutors summarized nine months of testimony since the start of the trial in September.
The killing spree on Nov. 13, 2015, at a Paris music hall, cafes and the national stadium led to intensified military action against extremists abroad and a security crackdown at home.
Most suspects are accused of helping create false identities, transporting the attackers back to Europe from Syria, providing them with money, phones, explosives or weapons.
French prosecutors demanded 10 life sentences; five for people presumed dead, and five for suspects physically in court.
Monkeypox vaccine: The U.S. government is buying more monkeypox vaccine as a surprising international outbreak continues to grow, health officials said Friday.
As of Friday, the U.S. had identified 45 cases in 15 states and the District of Columbia. More than 1,300 cases have been found in about 30 countries outside the areas of Africa where the virus is endemic.
Officials say the risk to the American public is low, but they are taking steps to assure people that medical measures are in place.
A two-dose vaccine, Jynneos, is approved in the U.S. The U.S. government has 72,000 Jynneos doses, and will get 300,000 more doses from its manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic, over the next several weeks, said Dawn O’Connell, who oversees the government’s stockpile of emergency vaccines and treatments.