Reminder: Fighting a Cop for Control of Taser Will Likely Get You Lawfully Shot
On April 4, 2022, Patrick Lyoya was shot and killed by a Grand Rapids police officer after violently fighting lawful arrest following an attempt to flee a traffic stop, and after refusing to give up control of the Taser Lyoya had seized from the officer during their struggle.
Essentially the entirety of the physical confrontation between Lyoya and the officer was captured on video, in various forms—the officer’s body camera until that was disabled in the struggle, the officer’s dash camera video from his patrol vehicle, and a bystander’s smartphone video. These videos were yesterday released by the Grand Rapids Police Department, along with extensive commentary, during an hour-long press conference. You can watch that press conference in its entirety here:
Based on those facts alone, this is patently a lawful use of deadly defensive force by the officer involved, who seems to remain unnamed at this point—appropriately so, as there appears zero evidence that the officer has done anything unlawful.
Naturally enough, however, the racial grievance industrial complex has seized upon this event as another purported example of “a racist police officer shooting dead an unarmed victim.” I note in passing that professional racial grifter Benjamin Crump is among the leaders of this narrative—which really should be the tell that the narrative is as far from the truth as one might possibly imagine.
Anyone following this event will hear lots of weeping and moaning about how this shooting was all over a mere traffic stop, a minor vehicle violation—the car’s license plates did not match the vehicle—and that Lyoya could simply have been sent a ticket in the mail.
I suppose we could imagine living in a world where police don’t make traffic stops, but that is not the world in which either Lyoya or the officer involved were living on April 4, 2022. Accordingly, all such talk is nothing but childish wish casting.
In fact, we live in a world where traffic officers are permitted—indeed, expected—to stop vehicles engaged in traffic violations.
Where those officers are permitted to ask the driver of the vehicle for a driver’s license.
Where that driver is lawfully detained during this process, and is not free to merely flee the scene.
Where such flight is lawfully preventable by the officer, including using reasonable force to the extent necessary to compel compliance. Indeed, such flight allows an inference by the officer of a crime being in play that is far more serious than a mere traffic violation.
Where non-deadly force in the form of a Taser is permitted when a suspect being subject to a lawful arrest is violently resisting that arrest.
Where a suspect who seizes control of that officer’s Taser, and is now armed and capable of disabling that officer and seizing the officer’s pistol, presents as an imminent deadly force threat to that officer.
And where an officer presented with such an imminent deadly force threat, after repeatedly ordering the suspect to give up control of the Taser without compliance, can use deadly defensive force upon that suspect.
Period.
Nothing that appears in the videos of this encounter between Lyoya and the involved Grand Rapids PD officer comes even close to unlawful use of force by that officer.
It is worth noting that the defensive use of a Taser for lawful purposes is properly understood as the use of mere non-deadly force; in contrast, the offensive use of a Taser to advance a criminal purpose, as was being done here by Lyoya, is properly understood as an imminent threat of deadly force—meaning, force readily capable of causing either death or serious bodily injury, such as disablement.
That same analysis applies to the 2020 shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Georgia after Brooks seized the Taser of the officer against whom Brooks was violently resisting lawful arrest.
The only person in this confrontation who could have assured that Patrick Lyoya was not fatally and lawfully shot dead by law enforcement on April 4, 2022, was the man who made that shooting both necessary and justified: Patrick Lyoya.
OK, folks, that’s all I have for you on this topic.
Until next time:
You carry a gun so you’re hard to kill.
Know the law so you’re hard to convict.
Stay safe!
–Andrew
Attorney Andrew F. Branca
Law of Self Defense LLC
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