“Mom, help me!”
Footage released by authorities shows five black police officers beating Tire Nichols for several minutes after he was stopped for a routine check in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 7. The victim, sprayed with tear gas and electrocuted by now former officers, tries to flee, but is caught by officers who clearly do not respond to the motorist’s pleas, reported AFP.
“Mom, mom, mom! Help me!” Tire Nichols yells in one of the excerpts. In another, he lies on the ground as police beat him with cold-blooded batons. After the arrest, the man was taken to the hospital with numerous bruises and died without regaining consciousness three days later.
Biden shocked by what he saw
The four-part video was posted Friday night on the Memphis City Council website. Reacting about thirty minutes later, President Joe Biden said he was “deeply shocked by what he saw.” Shortly after, the first demonstrations began in various cities of the country. In Memphis, where prominent black American public figure Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, protesters marched as the video aired, chanting “Say his name!” In Washington, protesters began gathering even before the video was released. “No justice, no peace!” they shouted as a video of Tire Nichols was projected on a nearby building.
Remembering the murder of Floyd
Joe Biden called for the rallies to be “peaceful” and spoke to Tire Nichols’ mother and stepfather by phone in the afternoon. FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “in shock” and US Attorney General Merrick Garland said authorities have launched a federal investigation. “When my husband and I got to the hospital and saw our son, he was already dead. They turned him to mush. He was bruised, his head was swollen like a watermelon,” said Rowe Von Wells, mother of Tyra Nichols, tears streaming down her face. eyes.
His death is reminiscent of the police killing of African-American George Floyd in May 2020, which shook and changed the United States. Protests against racism and police violence then raged across the country, which rallied around the slogan “Black Lives Matter,” which became a political movement of the same name.
Police call for calm
Memphis Police Chief Serelyn Davis has warned that a video showing Tire Nichols pulled over for a simple traffic violation is “comparable, if not worse” to a video showing the violent arrest of Black man Rodney King by the police. police in 1991. The acquittal, a year later, of four police officers for the murder of a young man triggered the then riots in Los Angeles.
Authorities have been calling for calm for several days as they await the release of the video, which David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, called “scary.” The Tire Nichols family itself called for peaceful protests. “Please show your protest, but show it quietly and in peace,” said Nichols’ father-in-law, Rodney Wells. Two Joe Biden advisers spoke to the mayors of 16 US cities about the protests. On Friday night, police in many American cities were preparing for possible riots.
accused officers
Five African American police officers who were fired after this tragic incident have been charged with second degree murder and jailed. They were later released on bail. Tire Nichols’ family said Friday that not only did police fail to help, but at least one officer smoked a cigarette immediately after the fatal beating, NBC News reported. Lawyers for the family have accused police of treating the violence shown in the footage as an alarmingly routine part of their job. According to defense officials, preliminary autopsy results show that the young man was severely beaten before he died. The Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office has yet to release an official cause of death.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, a well-known human rights activist who will address Tire Nichols’ funeral, said the fact that the police officers were black made the event “even more shocking.” “We are against all police brutality, not just white police brutality,” he added.
