After waiting weeks to see the surveillance and bodycam footage of the Tyre Nichols beating, the Memphis Police Department has revealed what occurred that fateful evening. On January 7, FedEx worker Tyre Nichols was pulled over for a traffic stop, allegedly accused of reckless driving. The department asserted Nichols fled from the scene and resisted arrest, resulting in officers using force.
However, activists didn’t take the department’s sorry at face value. Soon, the public began asking for footage of the altercation, and today (January 27), it was finally released.
View discretion is advised as this video will be disturbing to some viewers.
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The City of Memphis released four videos showing the evolution of Nichols’s encounter with police. The first clip detailed the bodycam footage as police pulled the 29-year-old father over. Soon, things escalate, and an officer pulls him from his car and throws him to the ground. Several other officers are also on the scene, one tasing Nichols as others hold him down and shout orders. Another fired off pepper spray.
Viewers can see Tyre asking for the group to calm down, but soon, he runs off. In the second clip, the officers find Nichols’s location, where he is savagely beaten.
“We do not want any type of disturbance. We want peaceful protests. That’s what the family wants,” Tyre Nichols’s stepfather, Rodney Wells, said on Friday ahead of the footage release showing the traffic stop that led to the death of Nichols. https://t.co/rh3b80aTqm pic.twitter.com/ypf1y88Bjy
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The incident also looked to be filmed from a security camera overhead. It showed multiple officers holding Nichols on the ground as another kicked him violently in the head. More soon followed, and another cop appeared with a baton. He repeatedly hits Nichols with the weapon.
Following a long ordeal, Nichols was left at the scene without medical attention for 20 minutes. His pain was visible. Three days later, he died from his injuries.
Tyre’s family has asked that any protest remain peaceful. They don’t want to see any more destruction, especially after viewing the horrific beating of their loved one.
Tyre Nichols, a father of a four-year-old, was also said to be an avid skateboarder who loved life. Additionally, according to reports, as he was beaten by officers, he called out for his mother three times.
You do NOT have to subject yourself to the video of the brutal murder of the good man named Tyre Nichols. The Memphis Police Department will be responsible for whatever comes following the release, but the family asks for peace. Remember Tyre like this.❤️ pic.twitter.com/aHuAXKRFSH
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Further, five officers have been arrested. Four have made bond while one is reportedly still incarcerated.
Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III, and Desmond Mills Jr. all face charges of second-degree murder. They have also been charged with “aggravated assault – acting in concert, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct and one count of official oppression, court records show,” according to USA Today.
I am deeply disturbed by the video released by Memphis Police today. We all witnessed a horrific yet perversely familiar act committed by officers of the law. Everyone involved must be arrested & charged with the murder of Tyre Nichols. His family and our nation deserve justice.
Tyre Nichols was hunted down and murdered.
What’s really clear about some of the reaction to the murder of #TyreNichols is that we’ve failed to fully understand race and it’s construction as a *systemic tool.* The entire system of policing sees the Black body as a problem. No matter who pulls the trigger.
The police officers who kidnapped and murdered Tyre Nichols were part of a special police unit purportedly designed to ‘prevent crime,’ inside of the Memphis Police Dept, which receives $275 million every year and sucks up 38% of the city’s entire budget. #DefundThePolice
Watching @JoyAnnReid’s show and seeing this video of #TyreNichols is heartbreaking. That his mother has to know this is what happened to her son …. i just cannot imagine.
since this will come up a lot in media coverage of Tyre Nichols in Memphis: while I get that it seems narratively significant that the officers are black. Statistically, it is unsurprising. In tracking police violence, we never found that race of the officer made much difference
