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Community members honor Patrick Lyoya with caravan, vigil one year after deadly shooting

Activists continue calls for justice, and they urge everyone to say Patrick Lyoya's name and share his story.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Calls of Patrick Lyoya's name rang through the southeast side of Grand Rapids Thursday evening, one year after he was shot and killed by Christopher Schurr during a traffic stop. 

Dozens of community members, including some family members, joined together for the unveiling of a new billboard for Lyoya off of Eastern and Sherman Southeast, followed by a caravan and candlelight vigil. 

They are urging everyone to continue to say Patrick Lyoya's name and share his story. Community members also continued their calls for justice. 

The caravan made its way to where Lyoya was shot and killed, on Griggs and Nelson Southeast.

"There's never a need to bring a gun into a situation with an unarmed person," Robert S. Womack, a former Kent County commissioner, said at the vigil. "I just wanna say it ain't over, and justice for Patrick!"

Just after 8 a.m. on April 4, 2022, Schurr pulled Lyoya over. The 26-year-old Congolese refugee was driving with a friend. There was a nearly three-minute struggle between Schurr and Lyoya, and Schurr shot Lyoya in the back of the head.

"When you lay a man down headfirst on the ground and put a gun to the back of his head, you are a murderer, dammit, you are a murderer," one activist said at the vigil. "He was someone's loved one, someone's brother, someone's daddy. Remember that."

Dozens of community members lit candles in remembrance of Lyoya. 

"Think about your candle right now that we're giving, the movement and the energy in the movement is just as fragile as this candle," another activist said. "How can we put forth our energy? That's keep pushing, that's keep coming out!"

Some family members attended the vigil, including his daughter and her mother.

"She's missing her daddy," Nijimbazi Adelfine said at the vigil. "I remember when my baby daddy was holding our daughter... she lose his love to his death. So, I think she's not fine."

She said she feels strength from the community's support in the last year.

"I'm feeling happy because they show me something like love," Adelfine said. "I just need to [say] thanks to everyone I see over here because they just come to hold me."

Community members say they warned the city that something like this would happen.

"They don't understand, they don't get it," an activist said. "We plead with them before Patrick was murdered."

Christopher Schurr was fired from the police force more than two months after the shooting, and he is charged with second-degree murder. 

His is out free on bond, and his trial is scheduled to begin in late October. Activists at the vigil said they would continue their calls for justice.

"Just look for those calls to action, and then show up because this goes beyond the courtroom, and it goes beyond a conviction," another activist said. "It's about making the streets and making people in our community safer."

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