Protests in US city after video shows police shooting of Black man

Crowed  of protestors gathered in  evening at Grand Rapids, Michigan on Wednesday. after police on aired  videos related to the  shooting of a young Black man by a white police officer.

One among four videos from the April 4 incident showing  the  police officer lying on the back of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya as the two scuffled after a traffic stop and then appeared  to shoot him in the head.

Prior to the shooting, the men had all the earmarks of being wrestling on the ground for control of the official’s taser. The  officer has not been named.

TV footage showed some 50 to 100 protesters convened in downtown Grand Rapids, a city of around 200,000 people. They carried “Black Lives Matter” placards and chanted “no justice, no peace.”

“I view it as a tragedy,” Grand Rapids police chief Eric Winstrom said of the shooting at a press conference Wednesday, at which the videos were released.

“It was just a progression of sadness for me. The loss of life in any circumstance is sad and I know that it’s going to impact our city,” he added.

Police killings of Black Americans have drawn acute national attention in recent years, particularly after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on the neck of George Floyd until he died in 2020.

Floyd’s death, which was recorded by a spectator in a video that turned viral, filled the Black Lives Matter development and started a long time of fights against racial unfairness and police ruthlessness in the United States and all over the planet.

The official in the Grand Rapids case is on paid leave while state police research whether to bring charges, Winstrom said.