The case of Tyre Nichols: a black man who was kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed by a Memphis officer

As protesters gathered across US cities over the weekend following the Memphis police beating that led to the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, officials have said the investigation into the incident will continue amid questions over whether there could be additional charges.

The fallout from the January 7 encounter has been relatively swift. The five Memphis officers involved were fired and charged with murder and kidnapping in Nichols’ death and the police unit they were part of was disbanded.

The family attorney for the man believed to have shot and killed a man said he believes there will be further ramifications, but that he is unsure if that will result in criminal charges.

Steve Mulroy said that nothing he did last week regarding indictments precluded him from bringing other charges later.

Mulroy said that officials knew releasing the video without charges was “incendiary.” The best way to speed up the investigation and consider charges was to do it as quickly as possible. and then the release of the video,” he added.

He wrote that the brutal beating of Nichols was murder and reminder that there is a long way to go in solving police violence in America.

He was left slumped on the ground in handcuffs, and only 23 minutes passed before a stretcher arrived at the scene. Three days later, Nichols died from his injuries.

All of the officers failed their oath, according to a spokesman for the organization. “They failed their oath to protect and serve. Did anyone try to protect and serve Tyre Nichols?

As a makeshift memorial grew on the corner where Nichols was beaten, marching protesters in many cities – from New York City to Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles – carried signs bearing the name of the young Black man, who the country heard calling for his mother as he was kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed.

The family of a man who enjoyed skateboarding, photography and sunsets remembered him as a good son and father who was also a skateboarder. They mourned the moments they will never have again, and recalled his smile and hugs.

The Memphis Police Department Ends the Charged Nichols Unit: Prompt Actions and a New Law to Protect the Children of Victims

The Memphis Police Department announced on Saturday that it would permanently end the unit, saying that it needed to take proactive steps for the healing of all who were affected.

“That reprehensible conduct we saw in that video, we think this was part of the culture of the SCORPION unit,” Crump said. We had demanded that they cease and desist before we see any more incidents like this.

“I think the smart move and the mayor is correct in shutting it down. These actions are not representative of the Memphis Police Department.

Memphis City Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas also commended the move and said the case should give the city a chance to “dig deeper” into community and police relations.

“We saw a very peaceful and direct sense of protest in the city of Memphis, and I think it’s because maybe we do have faith and hope that the system is going to get it right this time,” Easter-Thomas said.

The officers charged in the encounter with Nichols – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr. – are expected to be arraigned on February 17. They are facing charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping.

The attorney for one of the officers indicted, Mills Jr., put out a statement Friday night saying that he didn’t cross lines “that others crossed” during the confrontation. Ballin told CNN that Mills was a victim of the system he worked in.

The two Memphis Fire Department employees relieved of duty pending the outcome of the internal investigation were part of the initial care. And two deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office have been put on leave pending an investigation.

Ms. Harris, who delivered a surprise speech at the service, called on Congress to pass the bill, adding that Mr. Biden would sign it. Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer for the Nichols family, said a new version of the Floyd bill should include language about a police officer’s duty to intervene when they see police violence.

President Biden will meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday to discuss police reform, according to the White House press secretary. Ms. Jean-Pierre said Mr. Biden would continue to push for the reform bill, which stalled in Congress during his first year in office. But Ms. Jean-Pierre did not directly address whether the White House would consider passing additional reform measures through executive action if Congress failed to act.

The president of the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP praised Memphis police Chief Davis for not waiting six months to fire officers who beat up the man.

She said that Congress waswriting another Black man’s obituary if they failed to craft and pass bills to stop police brutality. Black America’s blood is on your hands. So stand up and do something.”

Putting the Tennessee Police to Work: Two State Senators Are Considering Reforming the Laws of Polcing in the Light of Tyre Nichols

On the state level, two Democratic state lawmakers in Tennessee said Saturday that they intend to file police reform legislation ahead of the Tennessee general assembly’s Tuesday filing deadline. The bills would seek to address mental health care for law enforcement officers, hiring, training, discipline practices and other topics, said Rep. G.A. Hardaway, who represents a portion of Memphis and Shelby County.

While Democrats hold the minority with 24 representatives compared to the Republican majority of 99 representatives, Rep. Joe Towns Jr. said this legislation is not partisan and should pass on both sides of the legislature.

“You would be hard-pressed to look at this footage (of Tyre Nichols) and see what happened to that young man, OK, and not want to do something. What would happen to a dog in this county if it was beaten like that? Towns said.

The prospect for new bipartisan negotiations on Capitol Hill for legislation overhauling policing laws remains very low, despite calls from the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus and others for congressional action in the wake of the brutal police beating and death of Tyre Nichols.

Talks broke down in September 2021, despite months of negotiation between Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican and his New Jersey colleagueCory Booker.

A Scott spokesman said that the senator has worked on police funding and reform for the last decade. “He has never left the negotiating table and has encouraged his colleagues on the other of side of the aisle to join him in his continued efforts to increase safety in our communities.”

But any effort would need bipartisan support and 60 votes to clear the Senate and would then have to pass a GOP-controlled House, an extremely difficult task and at this point, unlikely, outcome.

What is wrong with a man, but what does it teach us about safety and law enforcement? The case for reforming police accountability and justice reform in the era of divided government

“I don’t know that there is any law that can stop that evil that we saw that is just, I mean, just difficult to watch,” Jordan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What strikes me is a lack of respect for human life, so I don’t know that any law, any training, any reform is going to change, you know, this man was handcuffed. They continued to destroy him.

John Cornyn, a member of the GOP leadership and Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN he was unsure what the pathway was to find a deal on policing legislation.

The issue of changing qualified immunity for police officers remains a sticking point, according to Cornyn.

The release of video footage of Memphis, Tenn., police brutally beating Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black father and FedEx employee, has revived calls for Congress to once again consider police reform. But in an era of divided government, the likelihood of any legislation making it to President Biden’s desk remains slim.

The Nevada Democrat told NPR that he wants to know “what more we can be doing from an executive action standpoint” and added that he thinks Biden can be a key player in negotiations.

“I believe the president has the ability to bring us together in a unique way, and I am very happy about it,” he said, noting that Biden passed bipartisan infrastructure legislation. We expect the president to help reach agreement on a set of reforms for police accountability and justice reform.

“I think it is important that Biden address the issue in the upcoming State of the Union to show how badly people in America are dealing with this issue and how painful it is for them and their families,” said Horsford.

When a mother has to be concerned about her child going to a park, when a family member has to be concerned about someone breaking down a door in the middle of the night, and when a man gets pulled over and doesn’t have a ticket.

Horsford added: “Congress has a role to play, and anyone who says they don’t is abdicating their responsibility to keep our community safe. You cannot stand up and say you are for safety and do nothing to keep the community safe.

“We are working to come up with opportunities to negotiate on the principles of justice and police reform that are meaningful,” he said, noting he has reached out to Scott, one of the central players in previous negotiations. “We are looking for ways to tackle the pattern and practices of cities like Memphis that have higher rates of use of force against Black residents.”

“People say we can’t support law enforcement because we can’t hold them accountable to serve the communities that they are sworn to do so in a way that keeps people safe,” he said.

The bill, co-written by Vice President Harris when he was a senator, has been delayed for over a year due to partisan differences. The broad measure addresses excessive force and racial discrimination but party leaders differ on how to make it easier to bring civil lawsuits against police officers for wrongdoing.

“It had many elements in it that are important: banning chokeholds, dealing with no-warrant searches, dealing with accreditation of police departments. “It is necessary that we do all of these things but not enough,” said the Illinois Democrat.

Scott imagined that the duty to intervene, de-Escalation training, more resources, more reporting, so that we all have eyes around the country, was defeated in this chamber.

“We need to have simple legislation that we can agree on,” he said. “But too often too many are too concerned with who gets the credit. I am aware that when a Republican starts talking about policing in America, some people just turn the channel. That’s not right.

We can do some things. I believe there’s a lot of grant dollars that could be used. He said there’s reform that can happen there. “But it’s just a difference in, I think, philosophy. The Democrats always think that it’s a new law that’s going to fix something that terrible.”

Harris and the Wells Family: Public Safety in the Light of the Nichols’ Violations of the Fourth Amendment. Harris and Landrieu

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend the funeral at the invitation of Nichols’ family. Also expected are the mother of Breonna Taylor, as well as the brother of George Floyd.

The official said that the Vice President expressed her deep sadness and offered the family support.

Harris was invited to attend by the Wells family. The senior adviser to the president,Mitch Landrieu, will be in attendance.

President Joe Biden spoke with the Wells family on Friday hours before the police officers’ video of Nichols’ beating was released.

The administration presence at the funeral will come as come as prospects for federal legislative reforms on policing, which the Wells family has pushed for, appear slim.

Biden called the footage a reminder of the trauma Black and Brown Americans experience every day, and said it was a “terrible reminder of fear and trauma.”

Was he given the right to be safe? Let us understand what it means when we talk about public safety. Harris said at his Memphis funeral service that he should have been safe.

The Memphis Black Caucus: The Memory of Nichols, the King of the Police, and Philonise Floyd, the Clue to Justice

On Sunday, the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus said that the caucus chairman invited the parents of one of his caucus members to be guests of the caucus.

At the funeral service on Wednesday, there will be a memorial to the man who was killed by police in Memphis.

Mourners at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis are expected to celebrate Nichols’ life rather than focus on the heart-wrenching footage of the beating that left him in a hospital bed for days with his face badly swollen and bruised before his death, sparking protests across the country.

Representing other Black people killed by police, Tamika Palmer – whose daughter Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police during a botched raid in March 2020 – is expected to attend the service.

Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s younger brother who died in May 2020 after an ex-cop knelt on his neck and back for 9 minutes, is also expected.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a painfully familiar role, will deliver a eulogy that will pay tribute to Nichols’ life and serve as a clarion call for justice.

On Tuesday, Sharpton and Nichols’ family gathered at the Mason Temple Church of God In Christ headquarters in Memphis – where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famed “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech the night before he was killed.

“They will never ever recover from the loss. On every holiday they have a missing chair at their table. Every day this mother and father and brothers and sisters will have to remember he’s gone,” Sharpton said. “But we will never leave them.”

My brother was a really nice person. He never lifted a finger to anyone. Never raised his voice to nobody,” Dupree said. If my brother were here today, and he needed to make a statement, he would tell us to do it peacefully.

Nichols, 44, a Memphis, Californian before the Covid-19 epidemic: a photographer’s journal after the LAPD shootings

The footage of the brutal attack caused protests from New York to Los Angeles, renewing calls for police reform and scrutiny of police units that target guns in high crime areas.

Nichols was the baby of his family, the youngest of four children, according to his mother, RowVaughn Wells, who has said he usually spent Sundays doing laundry and preparing for the week.

He moved to Memphis from California before the Covid-19 epidemic and stayed there after mandatory lock downs, his mother has said.

When he was in Tennessee he frequented Starbucks and befriended a group of people who were mostly talking about sports, particularly the San Francisco 49ers.

His visits to Starbucks were typically followed by a nap before heading to a his job at FedEx. His mother recalled that he would would come home for dinner during his break. His favorite dish: her homemade sesame chicken.

In fact, taking pictures served as a form of self-expression that writing could never capture for Nichols, who had written on his photography website that it helped him look “at the world in a more creative way.”

The Memphis Plight of Tyre Nichols: In support of a new law of firearms prosecution in the U.S., Senator Dianne Feinstein says

Memphis’ Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church will hold services at 10:30 a.m. Central Time. The funeral will be streamed on both Facebook and YouTube.

As mourners filled the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis on Wednesday to pay tribute to Tyre Nichols, lawmakers, clergy and activists found themselves again calling on Congress to act.

Mr. Floyd was killed in Minneapolis by a police officer in 2020 and this resulted in a movement for police reform in the US.

“We need to get that bill passed,” said RowVaughn Wells, Mr. Nichols’s mother. “Because if we don’t, the next child that dies — that blood is going to be on their hands.”

Democrats want the federal code changed to make it easier to prosecute individual officers. The Democrats want to restrict the use of deadly force except as a last resort.

As she called on Congress to pass police reform legislation, the vice President expressed her hope that the death of Nichols would allow a light to illuminate the path to peace and justice.

The road to reform is more difficult now that House Republicans are the majority in the new Congress.

Senate Democrats picked up one more seat in last year’s midterm elections to pad their majority, but they’re still far short of the 60 votes that would be need for such an effort to succeed. That means the kind of police reform that the protesters are calling for will not be supported by Congress.

Ms. Harris: A Rejoinder to a Father and a Son Whom He Has Been Preceded for a Little One

“We have a mother and a father who mourn the life of a young man who should be here today. They have a grandson who is not related to a father. His brothers and sister will lose the love of growing old with their baby brother,” Harris said in her remarks.