An agent shoots and kills an African American man while he’s on the ground. A new shocking video returns to ignite the debate over police’s excessive use of force. The incident happened on April 4 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but police have only just released the footage. Images captured by multiple cameras show Patrick Loyola, 26, on the ground and a white police officer chasing him with his leg behind his back. The two crash into the taser extracted by the agent.
“Leave him,” you can hear the policeman yelling. “Don’t use the taser,” the agent repeated before pulling out his gun and hitting the 26yearold on the head. The boy had been stopped for a roadside check. “The policeman was shot dead during the fight. He’s being treated like everyone else,” Police Commissioner Eric Winstrom said, without revealing the agent’s name.
“If he is charged, we will announce the name,” he adds. The broadcast of the video was preceded by a demonstration in front of the police station. Hundreds of people took to the streets to demand justice for Loyola, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace.” In recent days, Winstorm has been meeting with Loyola’s family, who moved to the United States from Congo in 2014. In the face of the shocking images he was shown before he went public, Loyola’s father stood frozen, “almost passed out” in front of his son” lying on the floor with a police officer on top of him who drew his gun and put it in his head shot,” said Pastor Israel Siku, who accompanied the boy’s father to the police.
“It was an execution,” the family commented. “We are reminded once again how quickly interaction with the police can prove deadly for an African American in the United States,” said civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, the attorney handling the case of George Floyd, the face of Black Lives Matter movement edited.
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