KENTWOOD, Mich. — Mikeya Sterling, and other family members of Samuel Sterling, are grieving the loss of the 25-year-old father of three and rapper.
"I'm lost," said Mikeya. "I don't know how to go from here. Even though he was facing a lot of like, challenges in life. He was still a happy person."
"I'm not going to sit here and make him seem like he's just this clean, shiny person but my brother, he deserved none of this," said his brother Dominike Sterling. "Like, he was focused on his music."
Michigan State Police said Samuel Sterling died at the hospital on Wednesday as a result of getting hit by an unmarked MSP vehicle.
According to the agency, he was putting air in his tires when he was found by multiple agencies looking for him on felony warrants.
They said when he was approached by officers, he ran away, leading to a chase that ended with the police vehicle striking him.
"We're not going to overshadow the fact that, victimize my cousin about these outstanding warrants and things of that nature. We're not gonna push it under the rug that you took the vehicle and you just killed my cousin," said Sterling's cousin Jermar Sterling.
The head of the Michigan State Police, Col. James F. Grady II released a statement on the death investigation:
"Yesterday, a member of our department was involved in an incident that ended with the loss of life. As an African American male and a father, it's not lost on me that this is the death of another young African American male following an interaction with police.
As the Director of the Michigan State Police, I want to assure the community that we see you, hear you and will thoroughly and expeditiously investigate the incident.
A full investigation of yesterday’s incident is underway. The investigation, which is being conducted by investigators from a neighboring MSP district, will be thorough and objective. Our role is to be finders of fact and to compile those facts in an objective manner.
What we know at this time is limited and still subject to change. There is much investigative work yet to be done and I ask that we let the investigation proceed before drawing any conclusions.
Our initial investigation shows that the MSP Sixth District Fugitive Team along with members of the Kentwood, Wyoming and Grand Rapids police departments, Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) and U.S. Marshals Service, were working a fugitive arrest operation in Kentwood yesterday in an attempt to locate and arrest Samuel Sterling, who was wanted on multiple warrants.
Preliminary reports indicate officers observed Sterling at a gas station at 52nd Street and Eastern Avenue, putting air in a vehicle’s tires, and upon approaching him, he fled on foot.
Several officers pursued him on foot, while one MSP officer in an unmarked vehicle drove parallel to him. They ended up converging in the parking lot of Burger King on Eastern Avenue, where the vehicle driven by the MSP member struck Sterling.
Emergency medical support was summoned to the scene and transported Sterling to the hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries and passed away.
The MSP member driving the vehicle has been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
Former county commissioner Robert Womack has been talking with the family since Wednesday.
"I did connect the family with Attorney Benjamin Crump," said Womack. "We also have Al Sharpton and his organization that will be helping in different ways. But the family...they need time to mourn. I just want the community to understand. Besides anything they feel about this on any side of this event. This is a human being with a family that loves him."
His mother Andrica, along with the mother of Sterling's children Brianna Small said they're heartbroken over his death.
"If we could go back in time, if (there was) something that we could say to him, we would," said Small. "We're all hurting. It just hits different. He had kids. They have to grow up without their dad now."
"Anybody he touched he put a smile on their face," said Andrica. "He didn't care who you were."
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