Prosecutor says he won't retry former Michigan police officer in death of Patrick Lyoya

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on May 22, 2025

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DETROIT — Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said Thursday he will not retry former Grand Rapids police Officer Christopher Schurr in the April 2022 shooting death of Patrick Lyoya, an announcement that came two weeks after Becker's initial case against Schurr ended in a hung jury.

Becker said the jury that deadlocked earlier this month in the case was leaning 10-2 toward acquittal and he said he didn't expect to find a different verdict from a "split community on this issue."

"I felt there was not a basis to be able to retry this case and have a verdict at the end," Becker said.

Becker said he notified the Lyoya family earlier Thursday of his decision, and they were "very disappointed."

"This has been a very difficult case, and I apologized profusely," Becker said. "I'm very sorry I couldn't bring it to a conclusion for them. He said, 'I lost a child,' and he did."

Schurr's attorney Matt Borgula said in a Thursday statement the former officer was thankful for Becker's decision.

"The death of Patrick Lyoya was a tragedy, but the evidence at trial established that Chris was justified in using deadly force," Borgula said. "Chris intends to take some time to reflect and pray about his next steps."

Ven Johnson, an attorney representing the Lyoya family in a civil case over the April 2022 shooting, said the family had not only lost Patrick, but also the "hope that former officer Christopher Schurr will ever be held criminally accountable for taking Patrick's life."

"With today’s decision, what was once a pause in justice has now become a permanent reality," Johnson said in a statement. "This is not a verdict nor the outcome the Lyoya family sought."

The decision came about two weeks after a Kent County jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Schurr was guilty of second-degree murder or, alternatively, voluntary manslaughter. Kent County Circuit Judge Christina Mims declared a mistrial in the case on May 8 after about three and a half days of jury deliberations.

Schurr, 34, faced up to life in prison on the second-degree murder charge. The former officer shot and killed Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese immigrant in April 2022, when a traffic stop ended in a struggle between the two men over Schurr's Taser.

During the trial, Schurr's attorneys argued he was afraid for his life and acted in self-defense, but prosecutors maintained there was no "imminent threat" when Schurr shot Lyoya.

Both Becker and Borgula spoke with the jury privately after the trial on May 8. Becker, at the time, declined to say how the jury was split on the charges. Borgula told reporters that the jury indicated to attorneys it was "overwhelmingly" in favor of acquittal with some holdouts.

On Thursday, Becker said his understanding of the jury split was that it initially was four in favor of acquittal, four for guilty and four undecided. That later shifted to a 7-5 split in favor of acquittal and ended with a 10-2 split in favor of acquittal.

The prosecutor said his office has had about 15 hung juries over the last six years, and he's only retried one of the cases, where there was essentially one rogue juror holding up the verdict. The Schurr verdict was not a case of a rogue juror.

“We had a very good jury, and I just don’t see it coming to a different conclusion," Becker said. "I think to some extent the system works. I think this is a split community on this issue.”

Becker, when asked Thursday about what the case meant for the already tense relationship between Grand Rapids police and the Black community, said the tension has been present as long as he's been prosecutor and something he and police have sought to address. He has been the prosecutor since being elected in November 2016 and chief assistant prosecutor from 2011-2016.

"I'd like to see it healed, I'd like to see that come together, I hope at some point in time we can," Becker said. "But, even if we get a conviction or not guilty, I don't think that changes the underlying issues. I don't think that somehow cures everything."

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