GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) A jury said Thursday it could not reach a verdict, leading to a mistrial in the case of a former Grand Rapids police officer who was accused of murder after he shot and killed a man following a traffic stop three years ago.

The jury deliberated for about 21 hours before telling the judge it was hopelessly deadlocked in the case of Christopher Schurr in the death of Patrick Lyoya.

“I did receive communication that you were unable to reach a verdict,” Kent County Circuit Court Judge Christina Mims said as the jury returned to the courtroom Thursday morning. “I wanted to verify that that’s true, that you’re unable to reach a verdict as a panel.”

“Correct,” the jury foreperson replied.

Mims then declared the mistrial.

Jurors had said already said Tuesday that could not reach a verdict. At that time, Mims told them to keep deliberating. They did so, continued their work through Wednesday and returned Thursday morning.

“To keep sending (jurors) back (to keep deliberating) would have been a little more fraught in the sense that you don’t want to put the jurors in a situation where they’re feeling pressure to compromise,” Professor Tracey Brame of Cooley Law School explained to News 8 after the mistrial was declared. “The verdict has to be unanimous. They could not find a place where all 12 of them could land. I’m not surprised based on the evidence we heard in the case.”

LYOYA FAMILY: ‘WE ARE IN PAIN’

In a virtual news conference Thursday morning alongside their civil attorney, Lyoya’s family said they were “reborn of the wound” of their son’s death.

“The image of my son being killed, it came back again,” Lyoya’s father Peter Lyoya said in his native language, speaking through a translator. “We were fighting and we thought we were getting to the close of this case and were going to get the justice.”

“I want to say that (the hung jury) hurt my family, my wife. We are bleeding, we are in pain,” he continued.

He said the family would not give up on seeking justice for their son.

“I didn’t give up on my son, and we’re not going to be tired until we find justice for our son,” mother Dorcas Lyoya said through the translator.

Ven Johnson, the attorney representing the Lyoya family in a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Schurr, praised Prosecutor Chris Becker for prosecuting the case and said the family supported a retrial.

“We believe that this officer should be brought to criminal justice and we will certainly address the civil justice…” Johnson said. “We are ready, willing and able to move forward in the prosecution of our civil case.”

There had been demonstrators both supporters of Schurr and the Lyoya family outside the courthouse throughout the trial. When it seemed Thursday that there would be no verdict, the Schurr supporters seemed to leave. A few Lyoya supporters remained, but not many.

PROSECUTOR: ‘ALWAYS KNEW THIS WAS A POSSIBILITY’

Prosecutor Becker said he was disappointed but not necessarily surprised that the the jury could not reach a verdict.

“What happened today is not what anybody expected or wanted,” Becker told reporters in the courthouse following the mistrial. “We were hoping to get a conclusion. We thought we’d put a good case forward. Obviously, the jury thought differently. They were hung.”

He said he spoke with the jurors following the mistrial and knew how many fell on either side of the case, though he refused to discuss the details, saying the jury offered that information to him in confidence. He did say the questions that divided them were the ones laid out in court: the totality of the circumstances versus the moment of the shot was fired and the dangers posed by Schurr’s Taser during the struggle.

Becker must now decide whether to try the case again in front of a new jury. He said Thursday he had yet not made that decision.

“It’s a process and I’m not going to rush into it,” he said.

DEFENSE CRITICIZES PROSECUTION EXPERT’S THEORY

Defense attorney Matthew Borgula said the jury was “overwhelmingly in favor of acquittal and there were holdouts on the other side.”

He said he had not had much chance to talk to his client yet, but he knew Schurr “wanted some resolution” to a case that has been pending for three years.

“I think he felt that the jury took the time to deliberate, and he appreciates that,” Borgula said. “He obviously wanted it to be done.”

He said the case never should have been filed in the first place and he hoped it would not be tried again.

“I think that it was clear based on the evidence that there wasn’t enough to establish a charge in this case,” Borgula said. “I think there was a lot of evidence at trial that was irrelevant and that shouldn’t have come in. And so if there is going to be another trial, we’re going to likely seek rulings from appellate courts as to what evidence is put before the jury.”

THE SHOOTING

No one ever disputed that Schurr killed Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The question the jury could not decide an answer to was whether it was murder.

“What this boils down to is this was unjustifiable and unreasonable,” the prosecutor told jurors during his opening statement. “It was a crime.” 

“This case is about self-defense. This was not murder. This was about self-defense,” defense attorney Mikayla Hamilton said. “(Schurr) acted to save his own life.” 

The shooting happened the morning of April 4, 2022, during a traffic stop on Grand Rapids’ Southeast Side. Lyoya had been drinking before he died, a witness testified, and his blood alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit to drive, his autopsy showed. 

Video from the traffic stop shows Lyoya running away from Schurr and an about 2.5-minute struggle between the two, including them grappling over Schurr’s Taser. Ultimately, Schurr, who was on top of Lyoya trying to hold him down, shot him in the back of the head. 

“It was happening fast,” Lyoya’s passenger Aime Tuyishime testified on the first day of the trial. 

Wayne Butler, who lives near where the shooting happened, testified he saw it happen. 

“This isn’t going to end good,” he recalled thinking. 

The prosecutor said the shooting was not justified and charged Schurr with second-degree murder in June 2022. Schurr was fired from the police department. 

Schurr claimed self-defense. A series of appeals from his legal team meant it was more than three years after Lyoya’s death that the case finally went to trial. 

A jury of 14 people 10 women and four men was seated April 23, and the trial got underway April 28. 

THE TASER AND USE OF FORCE

At the center of the case was Schurr’s Taser and the struggle over it. The prosecution called an expert witness from manufacturer Axon to explain to the jury how it worked. He explained it was fired twice its maximum and at that point, the harm it could have caused Schurr was less serious than when someone is hit by the darts, though it could have still been dangerous. 

Two experts in police use of force said that, in their opinion, Schurr’s decision to shoot Lyoya was not reasonable. They said Schurr made tactical errors before the shooting. One said Schurr should not have chased Lyoya while Lyoya’s passenger was still in the car. The other said Schurr pulled his Taser too close to Lyoya, giving Lyoya the chance to grab it. One also argued Schurr should have given a specific warning that he was going to shoot Lyoya before he pulled the trigger. 

The defense worked to show that Schurr was in fear for his life when he pulled the trigger. Witnesses called by the defense included officers who responded to the scene after the shooting. They described Schurr as exhausted. 

The defense also called Grand Rapids Police Department captains who said Schurr did not violate department policies in his interaction with Lyoya and that it was reasonable for Schurr to shoot him because Lyoya had gained control of his Taser and posed a threat to his safety.

An expert on exertion and exhaustion factors for a company that provides training to law enforcement told the jury that it looked to him like Lyoya was in control of the fight with Schurr and didn’t seem affected by Schurr’s efforts to subdue him.

The video of the shooting was played repeatedly in court, with experts offering analysis. Brame pointed out it evokes a “visceral” reaction. She said breaking down the images in court allowed the jury to put the actions into context.

“Being able to look at this frame: Did the suspect have the Taser in his hand? What position was he in, etc? It kind of brought it back from an emotional response into a more analytical space where they were able to, again, put into context these actions within the fame of GRPD policy and the law,” she said.

Taking the stand in his own defense last week, Schurr said he was already exhausted by the struggle by the time he drew his Taser. When Lyoya grabbed it, he said, he was afraid Lyoya would use it on him. By the time he drew his gun, Schurr said, he was “running on fumes” and afraid for his life.

“I believe if I didn’t do what I did when I did it, I wouldn’t be here today,” Schurr said.

Schurr did not have to testify. He said he chose to because he felt it was “important to get my side of the story out.”

“The only person who could say what was in his head was Chris,” Borgula told reporters.

Under cross-examination, the prosecutor tried to show that Lyoya was just working to get away from Schurr rather than harm him.

“At no point did he go for your gun, did he?” Becker said.

“No,” Schurr responded.

Cooley Law Professor Tracey Brame said it was “essential” for the jury to hear Schurr’s testimony.

“They asked him more questions than any of the other witnesses,” Brame said. “That really allowed them to get a window what he was thinking and feeling at the time. And it seems from their questions and the difficulty in coming to a consensus that they were really struggling with what to do with that.”

CLOSING ARGUMENTS

Testimony wrapped up Monday morning, and attorneys for both sides delivered their closing arguments to the jury.

“This is a real man, a human being, shot in the back of the head,” Becker said. “I’m not going to sit here and argue Patrick was a saint. He was drunk driving. He was resisting. He was driving without a driver’s license. None of those are executable offenses.”

Becker told the jury that Schurr made critical mistakes after he pulled over Lyoya that day. He said Lyoya was only trying to get away from Schurr and never posed a threat to him, even if he had gained control of the Taser.

“Pain is not a reason to use deadly force,” Becker said. “Pain of a thousand burning suns doesn’t justify it.”

Defense attorney Matthew Borgula said Becker “failed miserably” to make the case that Schurr was guilty.

“You should find him not guilty after the government’s case,” Borgula said. “His entire life is on the line. The prosecutor cannot show that his fear was unreasonable.”

Borgula reminded the jury that Schurr made a lawful stop when he pulled Lyoya over and stressed that Lyoya resisted him. He argued the prosecution’s expert witnesses were viewing the case in hindsight.

“Judge (Schurr) on the decision, and not all this noise around it,” Borgula said. “If you have any sliver of reasonable doubt, you must acquit.”

In the end, the jury simply could not decide.

—News 8’s John Hogan, Ken Kolker, Madalyn Buursma and Brittany Flowers contributed to this report.