LAST UPDATE | 28 Jan 2023
AROUND 50 PROTESTERS gathered last night in the US city of Memphis, demanding justice after a video was released showing police violently arresting Tyre Nichols, a young black man who died a few days after the incident.
Waving signs reading “Justice for Tyre” and “End police terror,” they headed to Martyrs Park in the centre of Memphis.
Nichols’s death has re-opened anguished debate across the US about police violence, fuelling a sense that the huge, nationwide demonstrations of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd have done little to solve the problem.
Five officers, all also black, were charged with second-degree murder in the beating of Nichols, who died in hospital on 10 January, three days after being stopped on suspicion of reckless driving.
In addition to second-degree murder charges, the officers are facing indictments for aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping.
Four of the five were released from jail after posting bail, US media reported yesterday, citing jail records.
The protesters carried on to a bridge crossing the Mississippi River.
“Whose bridge?!” shouted an activist with a megaphone; “Our bridge” came the reply from the crowd.
The father of a four-year-old son, Nichols worked for FedEx, loved skateboarding and taking photos, and had a tattoo of his mother’s name on his arm.
Monica Johnson, a community organiser from Atlanta, said it was “sick” that all the accused policemen were also black, an anomaly among recent high-profile killings of black men, which often involve white officers.
She said the protesters demanded “accountability, conviction for all of the cops involved and a stop to the police making those traffic stops where they kill people.”
The lengthy video footage from police body cameras shows a group of officers detaining Nichols, attempting to take him down with the use of a Taser, then giving chase as he evades them.
Subsequent segments – the footage runs about an hour in total, and is audio-only in parts – show Nichols crying out for his mother, and moaning as officers repeatedly kick and punch him.
Addressing an emotional press conference earlier yesterday, the victim’s mother RowVaughn Wells called out the officers who she said beat her son “to a pulp,” telling them: “You disgraced your own families when you did this.
President Joe Biden, who has joined local officials in calling for protests to remain peaceful, spoke with Wells to offer his condolences and commend “the family’s courage and strength”.
“My heart just breaks,” Wells told the news conference.
For a mother to know that their child was calling them in their need, and I wasn’t there for him.
“My son was a beautiful soul,” Wells said. “He was a good boy. No one’s perfect. But he was damn near it.
Protests in Memphis, Washington, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta and a handful of other cities on yesterday evening were small and largely peaceful.
The White House said that senior staff had briefed the mayors of more than a dozen cities, including Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia, on federal assistance in case of protests.
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis compared the video to footage of the 1991 Rodney King beating, which sparked days of riots in Los Angeles that left dozens dead.
“I was in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident, it’s very much aligned with that same type of behaviour,” Davis said. “I would say it’s about the same, if not worse.”
Lora King, Rodney King’s daughter, told CNN: “I’m just sad for where we are in America; we’re still here.”
“We have to do better. This is unacceptable.”
Nichols’s mother has accused police of initially trying to cover up her son’s beating, coming to her door to say he had been arrested for drunk driving and pepper-sprayed and tasered after being difficult to handcuff.
The young man’s death drew immediate comparisons with the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, another nlack man whose suffocation by a white police officer in Minneapolis was caught on film.
Video of Floyd’s death spread rapidly, sparking a massive wave of at times violent protests nationwide and beyond, and reviving scrutiny of race relations and a culture of police brutality in the United States.
Police officer Derek Chauvin was consequently convicted of murder, in what was seen as a landmark case after he knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly 10 minutes.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, promises of police reform swept across the country.
And yet two years later, the number of people who have died during interactions with police hit a 10-year high in 2022, at 1,186 deaths, according to the website Mapping Police Violence.
African Americans accounted for 26 percent of those deaths, though black people represent only 13 percent of the US population.
By way of comparison, fewer than 20 people die in France each year during police interventions.
At a Memphis skate park where Nichols was a local, flowers and candles were laid out beside signs demanding “Justice for Tyre.”
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