(Washington) The funeral of an African-American killed in early April by a white police officer took place Friday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, amid calls for the name of the officer involved to be made public.
Posted at 1:59 p.m.
“It can’t stop today […] We must fight for him, ”launched the famous Reverend Al Sharpton, an African-American figure in the fight for civil rights, while delivering the funeral oration for Patrick Lyoya, as he had done for George Floyd, another Afro. -American killed by police, in 2020.
Mr. Lyoya, 26, was killed during a traffic stop in Grand Rapids on April 4, the latest tragedy in a long list of black people killed by police in the United States.
GRAND RAPIDS POLICE PHOTO VIA REUTERS
Patrick Lyoya
The police released four videos of the event, showing in particular the motorist and the policeman struggling on the ground. One of them shows the agent lying on the back of Patrick Lyoya struggling, before he shoots him in the head.
Al Sharpton also called on the Grand Rapids police to release the name of the officer involved, placed on administrative leave pending the results of the Michigan State Police investigation.
“How dare you withhold the name of the man who killed this man?” We want his name, ”he said to an audience of nearly a thousand people.
“Is it Michigan in 2022 or Mississippi in 1952? cried the reverend, referring to the former segregationist state in the South.
The ceremony, broadcast live by the local daily Detroit Free Presstook place in a church in Grand Rapids, the second largest metropolis in the state of Michigan.
Placed in front of the lectern of the church, the coffin, with its upper part open showing the body of Patrick Lyoya, was covered for its lower part with the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the homeland of origin of the young man.
American society has been rocked in recent years by the deaths of black men killed by police, particularly after a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on George Floyd’s neck in 2020.
The images of the death of George Floyd, in the street face against the ground, and after he had repeatedly repeated that he could no longer breathe, had shocked the whole world.
His name had thus become, alongside others, an emblem of the Black Lives Matter movement during the major anti-racist demonstrations of 2020.