The Grand Rapids man now being held up as a victim of police brutality was a car thief who was arrested for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend -
Tom Gantert It’s unlikely many people know the following facts about Patrick Lyoya, the man who was shot in the back of the head by Grand Rapids Police Officer Christopher Schurr on April 4, 2022.
Schurr’s murder trial is happening this week.
- Lyoya’s blood alcohol level the night he was killed was .29, well above the legal limit of .08.
- It wasn’t the first time Lyoya was drunk driving. It wasn’t even the first time police caught him. In 2015, 2018, and 2021, Lyoya was charged with DWI offenses.
- But according to media reports, Lyoya wasn’t pulled over for DWI that night. This time, the license plates didn’t match the car he was driving...Lyoya had been arrested and pled guilty for different traffic and vehicle-related charges previously.
- One of the times he pled out in a deal to “misdemeanor possession of a master key.” That means Lyoya likely had a key that had been filed down, making it a “master key,” because in some instances, filed down keys work on numerous cars of the same make—such as Hondas or Saturns. Police call them “shaved keys,” and they are the tools of a car thief.
- The license plate could have been changed because Lyoya didn’t want police to know it was him driving. He already had a warrant out for his arrest. On April 4, 2017, he was arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence, knowingly assaulting a pregnant individual—his girlfriend. He pled guilty.
- Lyoya was on probation when he was pulled over by Schurr and had been arrested eight times since 2015, according to Michigan State Police records...
