Michigan State Police trooper to stand trial on murder charge in death of man struck by SUV

KENTWOOD, Mich. (AP) — A now-retired Michigan State Police trooper who drove his unmarked SUV into a 25-year-old man who was fleeing from police has been ordered to stand trial for second-degree murder.

A district judge in the Grand Rapids suburb of Kentwood said via a Zoom hearing Thursday that she was sending former Detective Sergeant Brian Keely’s case to a circuit court.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced charges in May against Keely after the state police concluded its investigation into the April 17 death of Samuel Sterling and released body camera footage showing the collision.

The second-degree murder charge was filed with an alternative involuntary manslaughter charge.

Police have said Sterling ran from officers after they approached him at a gas station in Kentwood, just outside Grand Rapids. Police said officers attempted to take Sterling into custody on multiple outstanding warrants.

A 15-minute video of the incident released May 10, which includes body and dash camera footage from three separate police agencies, shows police chasing Sterling as they instruct him to stop and put his hands in the air. As Sterling runs past a Burger King, he is struck by an unmarked car and pinned against the building’s wall.

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Sterling can be heard moaning in pain as police call for an ambulance. The Kentwood man died later that day in the hospital.

Authorities have said Keely was not wearing a body camera due to his assignment on a federal task force, and the unmarked vehicle he was driving was not equipped with an in-car camera.

“Although the AG’s office told their ‘story’, the true facts will come out at trial,” Keely’s attorney, Marc E. Curtis, said Thursday in a statement. “This is going to be a long hard-fought battle, one that my team has been working on since the very beginning to prove Brian’s innocence.”

Michigan Department of Correction records show Sterling had violated the terms of his probation in June 2022 after he was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon, being a felon in possession of a firearm and stealing a financial transaction device.