(GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.) — Opening arguments in the trial of Christopher Schurr, the former Grand Rapids police officer who is charged with second degree murder in the fatal shooting of Patrick Lyoya, began in a Michigan courtroom on Monday morning. The trial began three years after the Black motorist’s death.
Schurr was charged with second-degree murder in June 2022 and his appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors argued in Monday’s opening statements that Schurr committed a crime.
“He shot him in the back of the head … When you put a gun in somebody’s back of the head, there’s an intent to kill there,” Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker told the jury.
“So what this boils down to is it was unjustified and unreasonable. It was a crime,” he added. “We’re going to ask that you return a verdict of guilty.”
On the defense side, Schurr’s attorney Kayla Hamilton argued that that he was acting in self-defense.
“You’re not here to judge what officer should have or could have done,” Hamilton told the jury. “You’re here to judge what he did in that split second moment based on what he knew, based on what he felt, based on his training and his experiences. Now, a man died, and that’s a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a crime, and not every death means someone has to be penalized, and self-defense is not a crime.”
A jury was sworn in on Wednesday, with jurors and alternates consisting of four men and 10 women, with 10 white jurors, one Black and three Hispanic, according to ABC affiliate in Grand Rapids, WZZM.
Schurr fought the charge in court, arguing that he should not have to stand trial because he was acting within his rights as a police officer. His final appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court in December 2024.
Video appears to show Lyoya, a 26-year-old immigrant who came to the U.S. to escape violence in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo, being shot in the head by Schurr after the officer pulled him over for an unregistered license plate on April 4, 2022.
Body camera video, which was released nine days after the shooting, showed Schurr pulling Lyoya over for a license plate violation. When Lyoya began walking away from Schurr, the video shows the officer shouting at Lyoya to “get back in the car.” Then a struggle ensued between the two men during which the video appears to show Lyoya reaching for Schurr’s stun gun.
The body camera was deactivated during the struggle, according to police, and does not show the moment Shurr shot Lyoya. But the fatal shot is seen on cell phone video captured by the passenger of the vehicle.
The video appears to show Schurr telling Lyoya to let go of the stun gun several times, and while Lyoya is on the ground with his face down and Schurr on top of him, the officer appears to shoot Lyoya in the back of his head. The Kent County medical examiner confirmed Lyoya died from a gunshot to the back of his head.
Schurr was fired on June 15, 2022 amid an investigation into the incident.
The stun gun was at the center of opening arguments on Monday.
Becker, the prosecutor, told the jury they are expected to hear testimony from an expert from the Taser and body-camera maker Axon Enterprise during the trial. He said that person is going to testify that stun guns are designed not to cause death or serious bodily injury when deployed.
“It’s not a gun,” Becker said. “I think, in the Grand Rapids policies and procedures, it’s something that’s called the electronic control device. That’s how it’s defined … even in the Taser training manual, it says it’s an option that doesn’t replace lethal force.”
“It was unreasonable. Patrick never had an intent to do any harm to the defendant. He never intended to kill him,” Becker added.
Defense attorney Hamilton said that Schurr gave Lyoya 29 lawful commands during the incident and that the two men struggled over the stun gun for over a minute.
“The biggest risk to police officers is that once someone has your Taser, if they use it against you, you will be left defenseless,” she said.
Hamilton said a stun gun could leave an individual “incapacitated.”
“Throughout this trial, the evidence will show that the Taser is a dangerous weapon that can cause serious bodily injury or death period,” she said. “The law doesn’t ask an officer to wait until they’re injured, incapacitated or shot, to act.”
Lyoya’s family filed a $100 million civil lawsuit against Schurr and the city of Grand Rapids in December 2022. Schurr denied wrongdoing in a response to the complaint, and in August 2023 a federal judge dismissed Grand Rapids from the lawsuit.
ABC News reached out to Shurr’s attorneys and the family of Lyoya ahead of the trial for further comment.
Before the trial, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Schurr’s legal team’s request to hear an appeal in the lawsuit filed by Lyoya’s family against the former officer.
Schurr’s defense team asked the court to decide whether the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong in determining it could not consider qualified immunity for Schurr at the time of the killing, WZZM reported.
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that protects government officials and police officers from being found individually liable in civil lawsuits.
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