Michigan State Police officer faces trial for murder of man hit by SUV

KENTWOOD, Mich. – A now retired Michigan State Police officer who hit a 25-year-old man fleeing from police with his unmarked SUV is now facing charges of joint murder.

A district judge in the Grand Rapids suburb of Kentwood said during a Zoom hearing Thursday that she would send former Detective Sergeant Brian Keely's case to circuit court.

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

The charge of second-degree murder was additionally increased to manslaughter.

Police said Sterling fled from officers who attacked him at a gas station in Kentwood, just outside Grand Rapids. Police said officers were attempting to arrest Sterling on several outstanding warrants.

A 15-minute video of the incident released on May 10, which includes body and dashboard camera footage from three different police departments, shows police chasing Sterling and ordering him to stop and put his hands in the air. As Sterling runs past a Burger King, he is struck by an unmarked vehicle and pinned against the wall of the building.

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

According to authorities, Keely was not wearing a body camera because he was assigned to a federal task force, and the unmarked vehicle he was driving was not equipped with a camera.

“Although the Attorney General's office has told its 'story,' the true facts will come out at trial,” Keely's attorney, Marc E. Curtis, said in a statement Thursday. “This will be a long, hard-fought battle that my team has worked on from the beginning to prove Brian's innocence.”

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