Protestors have gathered in Grand Rapids demanding that the police officer who recently shot a black man, Patrick Lyoya be held accountable.
Lyoya was allegedly pulled over for having license plates that did not match his car. After the interaction began, body camera footage shows Lyoya exiting his vehicle, fleeing the scene on foot.
After he is chased down, Lyoya is tackled but does not stop resisting. Instead, a struggle ensues over possession of the officer’s taser gun. At this point, the suspect is shot once in the head and is killed.
“We want equal justice. We want police held accountable,” a protestor told Fox. Situations like these are always difficult to understand. Why might an officer absolutely need to shoot someone who is attempting to gain possession of their taser? Tasers are meant to subdue the person to that they are applied to.
If the suspect can gain even partial control of the taser, and use it against the officer a whole new world of danger is realized. With the officer subdued, now the suspect has full and unlimited access to a whole new arsenal of weapons on the officer’s belt that can be used not only against the officer but against other people as well.
If the officer were to be subdued, what would then prevent the suspect from grabbing the officer’s firearm and shooting him, or his partner? Officers do not have the luxury of risking that a violent person subdues them.
“Unless we all come together as people who love other people and human beings, what happened to Patrick in Grand Rapids is going to happen to somebody in another city,” a protestor named Dennis said.
In reality, police shootings will always happen regardless of how reformed police are, because bad people will always place
the lives of officers or civilian bystanders in danger.