Father: Death of son hit by police car ‘senseless’

KENTWOOD, Mich. (WOOD) — The father of a man who died after being hit by an unmarked police cruiser during a foot chase said he drove by the police scene, unaware his son was involved until he dropped by a pizza joint to get dinner.

“I asked one of the workers … what was going on at Burger King, and he told me that a guy got run over by the cops and they killed him — still not knowing it was my son,” Samuel Sterling’s father Michael Sterling said.

He said he later got a call that his son was in police custody.

“I put two and two together … and so I went back to the scene and asked one of the detectives, ‘Was it Samuel?’ And they said it was him. They told me which hospital he was at, so I rushed up to the hospital and was there until he took his last breath,” he said.

Samuel Sterling, 25, died Wednesday afternoon.

“The next day, there was a butterfly right on my door, sitting right there. He stayed there over an hour — to tell me that he made it, he crossed over,” his mother Andrica Cage said.

According to a Thursday statement from Michigan State Police Director Col. James Grady, troopers and officers from various agencies were looking for Samuel Sterling, who records show absconded from probation nearly two years ago, because he was wanted on multiple outstanding felony warrants.

MSP: Suspect hit, killed by unmarked cruiser during chase in Kentwood

Around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, officers found Sterling at a gas station near the intersection of 52nd Street and Eastern Avenue in Kentwood. When they approached, he ran away, Grady said. Several officers chased him on foot and an MSP detective sergeant in an unmarked vehicle “drove parallel to him,” Grady said. Sterling and the officers ended up in the parking lot of a nearby Burger King. That’s where the unmarked cruiser hit Sterling, police say.

“It was senseless to me,” Michael Sterling said. “For a couple little warrants, they didn’t have to go this extreme of running him down. He didn’t cause no threat.”

The MSP detective sergeant who was driving the unmarked car has been suspended while the crash is under investigation.

Former Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack said famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump has taken on the family’s case. Local attorneys aligned with Crump will work with them. Crump worked with Michigan attorney Ven Johnson on the case of Patrick Lyoya, who was shot and killed by a Grand Rapids police officer in 2022. The officer in that case has been charged with murder.

Samuel Sterling had two young sons, ages 2 and 3, and a daughter who previously died at 10 days old.

“He was a good kid. He played football, basketball, wrestled,” Michael Sterling said of his son. “He loved his family. Got along with everybody. He wasn’t a saint, but he was him.”

Samuel Sterling was a rapper, his family said, and was looking forward to a show on Friday night in Detroit.

“They took my baby’s dreams,” Cage, his mother, said. “They snatched my baby’s whole life from him.”

“He ain’t never going to be able come back home. I ain’t never be able to hold him,” she continued, crying. “I’ll never be able to do anything for my baby. Nothing. I’ll never get that that call again: ‘Mom, I love you; listen to this music; Mom, I’m here for you anytime; we’re going to get big, we going to move up out of here.'”

She recalled his beautiful dimpled smile.

“What can a mother say when their child’s been snatched?” she wondered. “You wasn’t expecting this. You can expect a lot of things, but you would never be able to expect you’d have to bury your child.”

Family: Man hit by unmarked cruiser was father, rapper

Erykai Cage recalled her cousin Samuel Sterling spotting an elderly neighbor doing yard work and insisting on doing it himself.

“He had an older neighbor who was out doing her yard,” recalled Erykai. “He did her yard for her … He wasn’t perfect … but this was somebody who would give you the shirt off his back.”

Cage said the family will never get justice because it will never be the same.

“The family is grieving and will be forever grieving because we lost a light. We lost one of our stars, period,” said Cage.

Jermar Sterling said his cousin Samuel Sterling didn’t have a violent bone in his body.

“My cousin is bringing all of the family together,” said Jermar. “He had that spirit. Together, we’re gonna get justice for my cousin. Together, we’re gonna make sure he rests in peace.”

Cage organized a GoFundMe to help cover cremation expenses and to support the family.

The family has asked the local chapter of the NAACP to review the death, and NAACP leadership met with Grady late Friday afternoon. The NAACP said if it finds that the MSP’s detective sergeant violated the department’s pursuit policy or if excessive for was used, it would call for his firing and charges.

In his Thursday statement, Grady promised a ‘thorough’ and ‘expeditious’ investigation.

With the police investigation still underway and many questioned unanswered, family did not know what justice might look like for them.

“Way things’ve been happening with our Black young youth, with the police, it feel like we can’t get no justice, but I’m going to fight for mine,” Michael Sterling said.

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