A Grand Rapids, Michigah, police officer's decision to stop a car Patrick Lyoya was driving because of a license plate issue was legal, criminal justice experts said, but they and legal analysts were divided about whether the officer could be criminally charged in Lyoya's fatal shooting.
Some experts also wondered if better training could have led to de-escalating the April 4 traffic stop and whether the 26-year-old motorist posed a threat when he ran away from his vehicle after failing to obey the officer's request for documents.
In video released Wednesday by the Grand Rapids Police Department, the unidentified officer tells Lyoya he was pulled over because his license plate didn't match his vehicle. Lyoya was driving the vehicle and had a male passenger.
Three analysts said the stop was legal.
“As far as the original stop, some might call it a pretext stop, but it is perfectly legal to investigate an issue with a license plate and is an example of proactive policing,” said Daniel Kennedy, a consulting criminologist at Oakland University.
James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University, agreed with Kennedy's assessment based on what he saw on the video.
“I am not aware of the reason why the officer determined the inconsistency in the license plate, but once he did, the traffic stop was justified,” Fox said.
Larry Dubin, an emeritus professor of law at Detroit Mercy College of Law, said he was not aware of any police regulation "that would state that stopping a vehicle for an improper license plate is improper per se."
But he said training should have made the Grand Rapids officer take greater care with the stop.
“Police officers should be trained to understand that some Black motorists (or others) may feel fearful for their safety when stopped for a traffic offense,” Dubin said. “The driver of this car in question who lost his life may certainly have felt that way, which may have motivated him to run from the officer.
"Under no circumstances should a stop for this reason lead to the resulting physical struggle and subsequent death of this man. If he runs away, you have his car and the ability to follow up with a subsequent investigation under circumstances that would not lead to his death."
Matt Lassiter, a professor of history at University of Michigan who has studied and written about the history of policing, still questioned the stop.
"These sort of stops for low-level technical traffic violations are a core strategy of racial profiling and criminalization of non-White and poor communities," Lassiter said.
On Wednesday, Grand Rapids police Chief Eric Winstrom said stopping a moving traffic pursuit was different than de-escalation.
"Most agencies across the country, including ours, restrict pursuits for things like forcible felonies. When it gets to foot-pursuit policies, most law enforcement looks at that from a training standard. You can't contemplate every scenario to put it into a well-crafted policy," he said. "Foot pursuits and when to de-escalate is something we train heavily on."
In car chases, officers are trained to stop pursuing at some point under certain circumstances, said Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney in Detroit. The officer who shot Lyoya could have called back-up and “perhaps, there could have been de-escalation that could have helped. Ordinarily, officers are trained to de-escalate situations.”
The officer called for backup when Lyoya ran from the car into the yard but help did not arrive for about three minutes, Winstrom said.
The incident also highlights the need to reassess police policies on such stops, McQuade said.
“Even if the officer here did nothing wrong, the table was set for a tragic encounter," she said. "The fact that he’s alone is not conducive to a safe interaction.”
But Northeastern University's Fox disagreed.
“Mr. Lyoya was clearly uncooperative with the officer’s request for documents,” Fox said, adding that "when Mr. Lyoya tried to flee, the officer was justified in pursuing him."
Legal and criminal justice experts were split on whether prosecutors have enough evidence to file a criminal case against the officer, something Lyoya's family and attorneys demanded at a Thursday press conference and in prior statements. The analysts said more facts could emerge in the Michigan State Police's ongoing investigation.
After Lyoya fled, the officer chased him and caught up with him in a nearby yard, where a struggle began, according to the video footage. The officer continued to be unable to restrain Lyoya and drew his stun gun.
The struggle over the stun gun lasted about 90 seconds, Winstrom said. The officer fired the stun gun twice, and the police chief said both times it was fired into the ground. The officer's chest was against Lyoya's back, with Lyoya facing away and toward the ground.
"Let go of the Taser," the officer shouted to Lyoya before firing a single fatal shot with his handgun.
The video footage won't be enough to decide whether the shooting was justifiable or whether it is a crime, said McQuade. State police need to review clearer versions of the audio recording as well as interview the officer and Lyoya’s passenger, she said.
“It’s important to investigate fully before making a decision,” said McQuade, adding that the officer’s training and experience also could be considered.
“Police officers are permitted to use fatal force if a reasonable officer in that situation … believed deadly force was necessary to avoid death or great bodily injury to the officer himself or a member of the public," she added.
Since Lyoya had been stopped for a minor traffic offense and even if authorities determined he tried to wrest the Taser from the officer, McQuade said, that might not be considered justification for deadly force since it’s generally not deemed a lethal weapon.
But police officers are understood to face tense, rapidly evolving situations, she said.
"The law is quite favorable to a police officer when a jury is asked to decide whether they acted reasonably," McQuade said. "… Simply making a good-faith mistake is usually not enough to be a crime.”
Winstrom also said his department's use of force policy allows that an officer "should only pull their weapon when they anticipate to legally use the weapon."
After reviewing the footage, University of Michigan law professor from practice Michael Steinberg, director for the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative there, pointed to a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found “a police officer violated a fleeing felon’s constitutional rights by shooting him because the suspect did not pose a significant threat of death or serious physical harm either to the officers or to others.”
In the Grand Rapids case, Steinberg said, the officer “was on top of Mr. Lyoya and he was resisting arrest. …To me it didn’t look like he had a reasonable belief that Mr. Lyoya posed an imminent threat of physical harm.”
Since the officer was alone when Lyoya fled, Steinberg said, “he could have easily waited for backup. … (Police) had the car at issue there. There was no question that (Lyoya) was unarmed. To shoot somebody under these circumstances is shocking.”
But Oakland University criminologist Kennedy suggested the firing of the handgun might be justified under the circumstances known at this time.
“If the subject has possession of an officer's Taser during a struggle, the subject can put Taser in "drive-stun" mode and incapacitate the officer,” Kennedy said.
“A subject desperate enough to attempt to run and then struggle to control an officer's Taser also may be desperate enough to then take officer's gun and use it on him,” he continued. “This would be something known as 'weapon takeaway,' and results in 10%-15% of murders of police officers. This most likely will be the explanation offered by the police agency. These circumstances would result in same danger to officer whether the subject is White, Black, Brown or Asian."
Northeastern's Fox said Lyoya's failure to cooperate and resist potential arrest helped to escalate the situation.
"Lyoya consistently resisted as the officer attempted to control him. If indeed Mr. Lyoya grabbed the officer’s Taser from him, it was appropriate for the officer to use force needed to defend himself," he said.
“If the officer was threatened with being Tased, his only defensive move would be to fire his service weapon,” Fox explained. “The only question is whether a gunshot designed to overtake Lyoya without killing him would have sufficed to take control of Lyoya and of the Taser. That, of course, should be resolved through an investigation.”
UM history professor Lassiter blamed the officer.
"Best practices for police departments are to de-escalate and not escalate situations," Lassiter said. "A person fleeing on foot from a low-level technical violation is not a danger to anyone. The officer escalated the situation and created the dynamic that led to the homicide.
"Someone who runs from a car can easily be located later. Court decisions and use of force policies and prosecutors often exonerate officers in these situations, even when they create the perceived threat through escalation that either should or does violate policy. But if so, the problem then is the law and policy that enables this to happen."
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