By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted yesterday at 4:51pm, just updated
US President Joe Biden said he was “outraged” and “deeply hurt” after the pictures were released Friday night as protests began in several cities.
A long night of beating, with fists, feet, clubs: Americans discovered with horror on Friday evening, January 27, the extremely shocking video of the fatal arrest of Tire Nichols, an African American who died at the age of 29. The images show long moments of violence that the five black police officers used after a banal traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee on January 7th. Tire Nichols, sprayed with tear gas and electrocuted by a taser gun, attempts to escape but is caught by the agents, who are let loose, seemingly insensitive to the motorist’s pleas. “Mama. Mama. Mama!” Tyre Nichols yells in one of the clips. In another we see him lying on the ground for a second in defeat.
The four-part video was posted online on the City of Memphis website that evening.
Joe Biden ‘outraged’ and ‘hurt’
About thirty minutes after it aired, President Joe Biden said he was “outraged” and “deeply hurt.” Shortly thereafter, the first demonstrations began in various cities across the country. In Memphis, protesters marched when the video was released, chanting, “Say his name. Tire Nichols”. “You wouldn’t listen to us,” proclaimed the procession in the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. Demonstrators had already gathered in Washington before the video was released. “No justice, no peace,” they intoned as a video of Tire Nichols was projected onto the facade of a nearby building.
In a sign the case was potentially explosive, Joe Biden had urged the rallies to be “peaceful” and had called Tire Nichols’ mother and stepfather that afternoon. Because his death is reminiscent of that of the African American George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in May 2020. Demonstrations against racism and police violence then set the country ablaze, united around the slogan “Black Lives Matter”. “When my husband and I got to the hospital and saw my son, he was already dead. They had turned him to a pulp. He was bruised all over, his head was swollen like a watermelon,” Tire Nichols’ mother, Row Vaughn Wells, said tearfully in an interview aired by CNN.
calls for calm
Memphis Police Commissioner Cerelyn Davis warned that video showing Tire Nichols being pulled over for a simple traffic violation is “comparable, if not worse,” to video showing Rodney King’s violent arrest by police in the US 1991 shows the four police officers involved triggered unprecedented riots in Los Angeles.
Authorities had been calling for calm for several days and were expecting demonstrations after the release of the video, which David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, called “appalling”. Tire Nichols’ family have themselves called for peaceful gatherings. “Please demonstrate, but be sure to demonstrate,” her stepfather, Rodney Wells, said. Two of Joe Biden’s advisers have spoken to the mayors of 16 US cities about the protests. The police were preparing for possible defections on Friday evening.
Five police officers charged
Tire Nichols, in hospital, died three days after his arrest. The five African-American police officers, who have since been fired, were charged with murder and jailed. Four of them were later released on bail. FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “appalled,” and Attorney General Merrick Garland said a federal investigation had been launched. The family’s lawyers, as well as the young man’s parents, expressed their horror, acknowledging the “swiftness” of the action taken against the police.
Reverend Al Sharpton, a prominent civil rights leader who will deliver Tire Nichols’ eulogy, said the fact that the police were black made the event “even more shocking”. “We are against all police brutality, not just police brutality by white people,” he said.