GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker’s decision not to retry former Grand Rapids police officer Christopher Schurr comes as no surprise to experts familiar with such cases.
Becker issued his decision Thursday, May 22, regarding the fatal shooting of a Black motorist after jurors earlier this month failed to reach a unanimous verdict, resulting in a mistrial.
“I just don’t see a place where we get 12 people to agree,” Becker said.
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Paul Hirschfield, director of the criminal justice program at Rutgers University — New Brunswick, said Becker had to clear an extremely high hurdle to get a conviction the first time, and a retrial would likely end the same way.
“The evidence hasn’t changed, so it seems a reasonable expectation that either a mistrial or an acquittal would occur again,” he said. “Naturally, district attorneys don’t want to invest all the time and money involved in a trial if the outcome is likely not to be in their favor.”
Philip Stinson, a former attorney and professor of criminal justice at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University, gave a similar observation.
“That does not surprise me,” Stinson said in response to Becker’s address. “The prosecution understands that it would be very difficult to obtain a conviction at a second jury trial of Schurr.”
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Matthew Borgula, Schurr’s lead defense attorney, said previously that jurors told him after the trial that an overwhelming majority favored acquittal.
Current laws afford few opportunities to successfully prosecute officers in cases of excessive force, Hirschfield said, reiterating his previous point that police are trained to fear the worst possible outcomes regardless of the situation.
“The same police who are trained to fear worst-case scenarios also get to define what is reasonable via expert testimony,” he said. “So, as long as the police get to define what is reasonable, then the law does not provide an adequate means to prosecute police.”
There also is very little guidance from the courts on what defines “reasonable” force, Ben Jones, research associate and assistant director of the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State University, said.
“You see that play out in this case where the jury just can’t agree on whether the force is reasonable or not,” he said.
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In a slight change of direction, the Supreme Court earlier this month issued a decision demanding more consideration in the use of lethal force in the case of Barnes v. Felix.
In April 2016, Texas police officer Roberto Felix, Jr., pulled over Ashtian Barnes for suspected toll violations. Felix ordered Barnes to exit the vehicle, but Barnes began to drive away. As the car began to move forward, Felix jumped onto its doorsill and fired two shots inside, killing Barnes.
Barnes’s mother sued Felix, alleging he violated her son’s Fourth Amendment right against excessive force. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals argued that it could only judge whether in the two seconds that Felix was clinging to Barne’s vehicle that the officer feared for his life and was justified in shooting.
The High Court, in a small victory for Barnes’ family, rejected the 5th Court’s judgment as too narrow and that the court must consider the totality of the circumstances that led to his killing.
While Jones thinks that was a step in the right direction, there still wasn’t a lot of detail in that case on what counts as reasonable or unreasonable.
“If police use bad tactics in the leadup to create a dangerous situation where then they need to use deadly force, does that impact whether it’s reasonable or not? They left that unaddressed. So, given just how much ambiguity is in the law, unfortunately, it’s not that surprising that we get outcomes like this,” he said, referring to Schurr.
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In hindsight, it would have been easier and more practical for Becker to prosecute Schurr for reckless or abusive behavior rather than murder or manslaughter, Hirschfield argued, but there still would have to be a law in the books that makes it possible to prosecute such offenses.
Schurr, a seven-year officer, faced a second-degree murder charge for killing Patrick Lyoya the morning of April 4, 2022, in a neighborhood on the city’s Southeast Side. He stopped Lyoya because his license plate didn’t match the vehicle.
The officer told Lyoya, who was highly intoxicated, to stay in his car. Lyoya then shoved the officer, lifting the officer off the ground. Lyoya ran with the officer in pursuit. Schurr unsuccessfully discharged his Taser, with the second probe discharging into the ground after Lyoya gained control of it.
The two were wrestling on the ground, with the officer on top of Lyoya. Lyoya had moved the Taser from his left hand to his right, the defense said. He was holding the Taser like a gun, trying to get up and turning, when he was shot in the head, the defense said.
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Becker on Thursday stood by his decision to initially charge Schurr with murder three years ago. He did not want to retry the former officer on a lesser charge.
Despite no legal consequences, the incident is a stain on Schurr’s professional record. After Becker’s announcement, the city manager’s office issued a statement Thursday saying, “Mr. Schurr is not a city employee. The prosecutor’s decision does not impact his employment status.”
Schurr likely won’t be able to find employment at another police department either, but whether that happens would depend on what specific policy violations led to his firing, Hirschfield said.
Grand Rapids City Manager Mark Washington in June of last year made the decision to fire Schurr on the recommendation of GRPD Chief Eric Winstrom.
Winstrom said he based his decision to recommend firing Schurr on Becker’s assessment of the state police investigation as well as the video of Lyoya’s death and the internal affairs interview with Schurr.
Often, when officers are guilty of misconduct, they will resign before they have a chance to be fired, Hirschfield said. An officer’s firing also typically happens after criminal proceedings, making Schurr’s case unique.
Such a case occurred in 2016 when Oklahoma police officer Betty Jo Shelby fatally shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher.
Shelby was charged with first-degree manslaughter but was found not guilty in 2017. She resigned from the Tulsa Police Department shortly after and found a new position as a Rogers County sheriff’s deputy.
Schurr’s career as a police officer could also be jeopardized by public backlash, Hirschfield said, referencing the 2014 killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by Ohio police officer Timothy Loehmann.
While Loehmann was not convicted, the Cleveland Police Department fired him in 2017 after an internal investigation revealed he lied on his application to the CPD.
Loehmann struggled afterward to maintain a career as a police officer. He reportedly found employment in 2018 as a part-time officer in Bellaire, Ohio, but withdrew his application shortly after his hiring was made public.
In 2022 he became the sole police officer in the small town of Tioga Borough, Pa., but resigned after less than a week. He also had a short-lived stint with the police department in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, but resigned again due to public backlash.
“(Schurr’s) case, depending on where he would be hired, could generate the same sort of backlash, so I think a new department would be very cautious in considering hiring him,” Hirschfield said.
For more of MLive’s coverage on the case, visit here.
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