During a Sunday appearance on Symone Sanders’ weekend show, Rep. Maxine Waters fired Sen. Kyrsten Sinema as “that woman from Arizona,” while criticizing some Congressional Democrats for not addressing police reform after Tire Nichols’ death.
Firebrand Waters slammed Sinema, as well as moderate and often swinging Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, for not giving a damn about police reform legislation as the issue flares up again after the brutal caning of 29-year-old Nichols.
Recalling her political career fighting for police reform that dates back to the Rodney King crackdown in the late ’90s, she said, “We keep fighting, we keep begging, we keep doing everything we can,” she told Sanders and adding that efforts continue to fail because “we don’t have enough members who care enough about this issue”.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters says Sens. Sinema and Machin “don’t care” about police reform issue after the brutal beating and subsequent death of Tire Nichols.
“Even if you look at two Democrats — Manchin, of course, and this Arizona woman, of course — they don’t give a fuck about this issue. They would rather have the power to dictate what happens in the Senate using their two votes for themselves than anything else,” she said.
Sanders, as viewers could see, formed the words “Kyrsten Sinema” when Waters addressed her dismissively and namelessly, but her mic appeared to be cut off.
After the death of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officers in 2020, Senator Sinema was one of many critics in Congress of the “defund the police” movement, which was quickly gaining traction.
A spokesman for the senator at the time told the Arizona Mirror, “Kyrsten is focused on getting things done and is working with colleagues in both parties on proposals including increased use of social workers and intervention strategies that will keep Arizona families safe.”
In June 2020, Manchin was among several Democrats who voted to open a debate on the targeted police reform bill introduced by Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
In a statement following the death of Tire Nichols, Manchin released a statement that read, in part, “This cannot be the America we aspire to and we must come together to tackle it meaningfully.”
The five Memphis police officers, all black, were seen in bodycam footage using pepper spray and a stun gun on Nichols, repeatedly punching and kicking him while he yelled for his mother.
Nichols eventually died in hospital from injuries sustained during the beating. The five police officers who were released from the department last week have each been charged with second-degree murder and a handful of other crimes related to the incident.
After the incident, President Biden called on the Legislature to pass police reform legislation.
He expressed his anger at what he saw in footage of Nichols interacting with the five officers.
“It’s another painful reminder of the deep fear and trauma, pain and exhaustion that black and brown Americans experience every day,” he said in a statement.
Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Macnhin and Jeanne Shaheen during a press conference on the infrastructure package negotiations
Tire Nichols is holding a child and entertaining them with a cartoon on his phone
Tire Nichols is featured in photos from friend Angelina Paxton’s page
Tire Nichols, 29, was beaten by five Memphis, Tennessee police officers on Jan. 7 and died in hospital days later. Previously unreleased footage of his murder spurred the protests. Earlier this month, the Memphis PD said it had charged the five officers involved with murder
Protests have erupted across the US for a second night after Memphis police released brutal footage of Nichols’ death.
Demonstrators vandalized businesses in Los Angeles while others in New York City, Washington DC, Memphis and other cities remained mostly peaceful.
There were renewed demonstrations in cities in the United States on Saturday. In Memphis, protesters shout, “Whose streets? Our streets!’ angrily called a police car monitoring the march, with several making obscene gestures.
Hundreds gathered in Washington Square Park in New York City before marching through Manhattan while columns of police officers walked alongside them.
In Los Angeles, a small group of Antifa were seen vandalizing stores in a second night of unrest following the release of Nichols police video.
Protesters in downtown Atlanta repeated Nichols’ name and demanded justice. Around 40 people gathered outside Philadelphia City Hall to protest the killing.
Demonstrators block traffic as they demonstrate against the deadly Tire Nichols police attack on January 29, 2023 in Venice, California
People gather to call for police reform following the murder of Tire Nichols outside the Memphis Police Department’s Ridgeway Station on Sunday, January 29, 2023