Local media coverage for the 3rd anniversary of the GRPD’s killing of Patrick Lyoya perpetuates a biased narrative and seemingly disinterested coverage

On the 3rd anniversary of Patrick Lyoya’s murder by the GRPD, I wrote a reflection and offered up several points we should be thinking about before the trial of the ex-cop who shot Patrick, a trial that begins on April 28th.

The four points I made were: 1) that the City of Grand Rapids and the GRPD have attempted to control the narrative about what happened on April 4th, 2022; 2) that the local news media have demonstrated biased coverage in reporting on this case, along with white washing the person of Christopher Schurr; 3) that there have been 2 major FOIA request, where both of them have had significant redactions, thus hiding critical information from the public, and 4) the commercial news media has provided limited coverage of those who have been organizing to demand justice for Patrick Lyoya over the past 3 years.

Today, I want to look at several local news stories that were produced regarding the 3rd anniversary of Patrick Lyoya’s death. MLive, WOODTV8 and WXMI 17 all ran stories about the 3rd anniversary, which I will deconstruct here.

The MLive story was headlined, 3 years after deadly shooting of Patrick Lyoya, police officer’s murder trial looms. The narrative in the MLive story about what happened was a standard narrative, although limited in scope. In fact, the MLive story provides as much, if not more, coverage of how Schurr’s lawyers have delayed legal proceedings, without talking about the motivations of the delay. The lawyer representing the Lyoya family is cited twice, early on in the article and then again near the end. However, GRPD Police Chief Winstrom is afforded more space and makes 2 claims during a recent meeting with the news media: 

• Winstrom said he is not expecting any upcoming rallies or protests to get out of hand. 
• Winstrom believes the community’s relationship with Grand Rapids officers has changed for the better since then.

The MLive reporter doesn’t verify or question either claim, thus allowing Winstrom to dictate the narrative. Regarding any protests during the trial, it is always difficult to predict what people will do, but Winstrom is likely basing his claim that things will not “get out of hand”, especially since he became Chief of Police, the GRPD have criminalized dissent even more than before.

The WOODTV8 story also provides a standard narrative about what happened and they include comments from the Lyoya family lawyer and Cle Jackson, the head of the GR chapter of the NAACP. However, more actually airtime was devoted to the quote that channel 8 got from Schurr’s lawyer, combined with the amount of time given to comments from Schurr’s lawyer back in 2022, where the lawyer is arguing that Schurr was justified in shooting Lyoya because he was “resisting arrest.”

Unfortunately, the channel 8 story ends with a comment from the GR NAACP leader who said, “I am hopeful that community and law enforcement can come together in a real authentic way and be committed to making sure incidents like these never ever happen again.” As long as the GRPD exist, there is always the threat that they will kill people, especially Black and Brown residents, since the GRPD has a larger presence in those neighborhoods.

Lastly, the WXMI 17 story has the reporter providing a summary of what happened on April 4th, 2022, but also says that Lyoya, “struggled to get control of Schurr’s taser.” This kind of language is a bit misleading, in that Lyoya grabbed the tazer while still in Schurr’s hand to prevent him from pointing it at him. This would seems to be a completely understandable reaction for someone who does not want to be tazed.

The channel 17 story then cuts to the Lyoya family attorney Ven Johnson, who explains both what will happen in the criminal trial and the civil trial. Schurr’s lawyers were contacted, but did not respond before this story aired.

Considering how this is such a high profile case, which has received national attention, it is instructive that the local news media has not done more stories around the 3rd anniversary of Lyoya’s death. Beside doing the obvious and standard coverage, the local news media is missing out on opportunities to engage the public on this case, as well as to talk with people and organizations that focus on police violence, such as Interrupting Criminalization.

Lastly, it is important to point out that the local news media has provided more attention to the All Access Grand Rapids show on HBO/MAX, an 8 part series that begins tomorrow night, than it has on the GRPD killing of Patrick Lyoya. The fact that the local news has focused more on the GRPD COPS show than on the GRPD murder of Patrick Lyoya would clearly indicate that Copaganda is more important than the harm the GRPD perpetrates in this city on a daily basis.