Autopsy Finds Police Victim Killed by Gunshot to Back of the Head
Lawyers for the family of Patrick Lyoya have released results from an independent autopsy confirming that the 26-year-old Black man was killed by a bullet to the back of the head during a confrontation with an as yet unnamed Grand Rapids, Mich., police officer.
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Lawyers for the family of Patrick Lyoya have released results from an independent autopsy confirming that the 26-year-old Black man was killed by a bullet to the back of the head during a confrontation with an as-yet unidentified Grand Rapids, Mich., police officer, reports The Guardian. “There is no question what killed this young man … the bullet entered in the back of the head,” said Dr Werner Spitz, a forensic pathologist and former medical examiner who worked on investigations after the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
During a short foot race and struggle following a traffic stop, the officer ended up on top of Lyoya, trying to subdue him. According to some accounts the officer pulled out a Taser which Lyoya grabbed. The officer fired his gun after demanding that Lyoya drop the Taser. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing Lyoya’s family, has demanded that the officer be terminated, arrested and prosecuted. Crump said that if charges are not issued against the officer, he and his co-attorney Ven Johnson would appeal to the state attorney general, Dana Nessel, and other authorities. Grand Rapids police chief, Eric Winstrom has said the name of the officer who shot and killed Lyoya will be released only if the officer is charged.
