GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. — Many questions remain surrounding 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya's death, including what exactly happened and who is the officer responsible.
Tuesday night, residents showed up and packed the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, demanding answers to those questions and calling for members of the local government to resign.
During that meeting, a long line of community members shared their disappointment in the way Patrick's death has been handled. They say, this is not the first incident of the Grand Rapids Police Department lacking accountability, and that there needs to be full transparency and justice. They add, they don't want prayers they want policy change.
Public comments:
"You’re supposed to preserve and improve the life of the residents of this place, and instead the folks who are obligated and under your responsibility allowed for the extinguishing of a life instead.. you share the blame."
"Buck the system used to unfairly shelter cops from consequences the rest of us would have to deal with, tomorrow is yet another day too late to cough up video of this inexcusable execution. This officer has enjoyed anonymity and slow walking for far too long and none of the rest of us get that treatment."
"We don’t need to wait for another tragedy to happen so that you can hear us, please make that change now."
"The world will be watching everything that happens after, this could be a step in the right direction to prevent this."
Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack also spoke during the meeting. He said he hasn't mentioned anything about re-election because that's hard to do when there are "Black men dying in the streets."
During an interview with FOX 17 Monday, Mayor Rosalynn Bliss told us she hadn't seen the video yet.
Many people at the meeting called for the raw, unedited video to be released when it is made public Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Lyoya family has retained renowned Civil Rights attorney Ben Crump.
