Prosecutors in Grand Rapids, Mich., announced on Thursday that they would not retry a former police officer whose murder trial ended in a hung jury this month.
The former officer, Christopher Schurr, testified that he fatally shot Patrick Lyoya during a traffic stop in 2022. Mr. Lyoya had seized control of his stun gun during an altercation, and Mr. Schurr told the jury that he used lethal force because he feared for his life.
Jurors deliberated for four days without reaching a verdict, prompting Judge Christina Mims of the Kent County Circuit Court to declare a mistrial.
In a news conference Thursday morning, Chris Becker, the Kent County prosecutor, said he had concluded that the state was unlikely to prevail by putting the case before a new jury.
“Looking at everything I had, looking at the facts, quite frankly I felt there was not a basis to be able to retry this case,” Mr. Becker said.
Mr. Becker said that the jury that deadlocked included 10 individuals who favored acquittal and two who wanted to convict the officer.
Mr. Lyoya’s death heightened racial tensions in Michigan amid a national debate over racism and police misconduct after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Mr. Schurr, 36, is white. Mr. Lyoya, 26, was Black.
The killing, which occurred in a residential area on a rainy morning in April 2022, received extensive news coverage because it was captured on video from several vantage points.
Mr. Lyoya, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was pulled over because the license plate on his car was registered to another vehicle. When Mr. Schurr sought to arrest him, Mr. Lyoya tried to flee, which led to a physical altercation.
After Mr. Lyoya grabbed the officer’s Taser weapon while they tussled on the ground, Mr. Schurr shot him in the back of the head.
“I believe that if I hadn’t done it at that time, I wasn’t going to go home,” Mr. Schurr testified.
After the mistrial was declared, Mr. Lyoya’s parents told reporters that they hoped prosecutors would try Mr. Schurr again. On Thursday, Ven Johnson, a lawyer representing the Lyoya family, said they were deeply disappointed.
“The Lyoya family has not only lost Patrick, but now the hope that former Officer Christopher Schurr will ever be held criminally accountable for taking Patrick’s life,” he said in a statement.
Ernesto Londoño is a Times reporter based in Minnesota, covering news in the Midwest and drug use and counternarcotics policy.
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