Nearly a week after video of the fatal caning of a defenseless young African American man named Tire Nichols by five black Memphis police officers was released, two officers and three Memphis firefighters were demoted from their posts for their actions and omissions during car night. Authorities have so far avoided what they feared most, a nationwide protest, but they have failed to silence voices calling for a debate on police reform that has too often been postponed in the United States.
This Wednesday, the first day of Black History Month, the city of Memphis, Tennessee, released the boy at a funeral set to the rhythm of gospel music, at which Reverend Al Sharpton, a key figure in the struggle for civil rights over the past half century, was in charge. Also in attendance were relatives of other notorious police victims and a handful of politicians ranging from congressmen to mayors, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, who arrived with a group of officials sent on a comfort mission by the White House.
Harris took the floor at Sharpton’s request to celebrate the “extraordinary lesson” being offered by the victim’s parents these days. “When a mother gives birth to a child, all she wants is for it to be safe for the rest of her life,” she said. “When we talk about citizen security, we need to understand what this concept of truth means. Tire Nichols should have been safe from those charged with protecting him.”
The funeral became a cry for police reform in the United States and a firm call to Washington, where legislation promoted by then-Senator Kamala Harris, among others, called for changing the rules of daily uniformed violence in the United States was and has been languishing for two years because of the republican blockade. “As Vice President, I am demanding that Congress pass the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act,” Harris said. “Joe Biden will sign it. We cannot admit any further delays. It’s non-negotiable.”
Tire Nichols’ mother at her son’s funeral, surrounded by the Reverend Al Sharpton, her husband and family attorney Ben Crumps, among others. – (AFP)
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The legislative initiative came after the death of African American George Floyd by suffocation under the weight of white agent Derek Chauvin’s knee. It happened in May 2020 and lit a fuse that other tragedies (unpunished police abuse with the proper names Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner or Trayvon Martin) previously failed to ignite.
Floyd’s killing led to a bill bearing his name being introduced by Congressional Democrats in 2020 and again in 2021. The bill aims to establish a national police misconduct register to prevent agents’ criminals from avoiding the consequences of their actions by moving to another jurisdiction. There are more than 18,000 police departments in the United States, and each imposes its own rules.
The law also proposes increased scrutiny over agents’ behavior and condemns acts mediated by racial or religious prejudice. Defenders of the proposed regulation reiterate that it “would save lives” by, among other things, banning strangulation to immobilize a detainee. It also reserves “deadly force” as a “last resort”.
Both times, the initiative crashed into the Republican wall in the Senate over disagreements over the concept of “qualified immunity,” which helps agents in situations where they suspect their lives are in danger. One of the main arguments against it is that it would deter those who aspire to a career in the police force. Now that after the last general election the Conservatives have a majority in the House of Lords who will present
While these measures have been touted as a master plan to disempower the police force and wreak havoc on the country’s streets, such a law seems unlikely to pass.
“Slow and frustrating progress”
President Joe Biden used the second anniversary of Floyd’s death to sign a limited-scope executive order on police reform. “I know progress can be slow and frustrating,” Biden said that day in the White House. “But today we act.”
Image from police video showing Tire Nichols on February 7 after the beating that killed him three days later. PA
At the moment, this action does not seem to be felt on the streets: according to the organization Mapping Police Violence, a sentinel on police abuse, the number of deaths from bullets at the hands of agents has remained practically the same since 2020 (1,123, in 2022). According to this data, a black person is almost three times more likely to die at the hands of the police than a white person.
All in all, it wouldn’t be fair to say that nothing has changed in the wake of the Floyd tragedy, which sparked a nationwide protest wave and put the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement at the center of the conversation. That of Nichols, a 29-year-old delivery man who loves photography and skateboarding – who was pulled over on January 7 for an alleged traffic violation when he was just “trying to get home,” as he told the uniformed officers making their ride ended with beatings, kicks and clubs – will at least be remembered as a case in which the police subsequently acted with unusual speed and determination. The five main suspects, whose “elite” unit belonging to a program called Scorpion was dismantled, have already been released and charged with crimes as serious as murder, abuse of office or kidnapping.
The spread of the video was also faster than at other times; They lasted three weeks instead of several months or even a year as before. What followed the expected pattern was the discrepancy between what the agents declared to have happened in the report and what actually happened on the record. Nichols died in hospital three days later. The ambulance that took him there took 22 minutes to arrive.
Demonstration in Memphis for the death of Tire Nichols. The banner reads: “End police terror.” DAVID DEE DELGADO (Portal)
The rapid resolution of the crisis after the facts became known was influenced by the fact that the accused, like the victim, were black, which did not prevent the racist interpretation of an event speaking of the “dehumanization of African Americans” in the United States. “American citizen before police,” according to some analysts. Also crucial was the role of Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman to hold the position. In 2020, he was working in Durham, North Carolina, and was a during the riots that followed Floyd’s killing the most critical voices within the establishment.
The Memphis Police Department website has a section titled Reimagining Policing. That didn’t stop the Scorpion program from taking off in 2021, just as killings in the city skyrocketed: four squads of 10 officers each authorized to patrol the city’s crime hotspots in unidentified cars. They were also allowed to stop drivers indiscriminately to investigate homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies.
The Memphis isn’t the only program of its kind launched in the United States. What unites all of this is the fact that they operate with greater discretion and less supervision than regular police officers. “Some of these units have touted impressive records of arrests and weapons confiscations, although these statistics do not always correlate with a decrease in crime. They are all based on the idea that police officers need less surveillance to be effective. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding,” Radley Balko, author of a book on “the militarization of American police forces,” told the New York Times Monday.
California police kill man with amputated legs running from officers
The organization Mapping Police Violence calculates that in 2022 there will be only nine days in the United States on which there will be no deaths from police bullets. Last Thursday wasn’t one of those days.
Huntington Park police agents, south of Los Angeles, killed Anthony Lowe, a 36-year-old man who had both legs amputated that day. The event is captured by a cell phone recording taken in a car. In it, Lowe is seen walking away from his wheelchair. He appears to be running away from two police officers who come towards him with their pistols. The video does not show the moment of shooting.
The Huntington Park Police Department said in a statement that officers were there to respond to a stabbing allegedly committed by someone in a wheelchair; that they tried to arrest Lowe; and that he ignored his orders. “Threatened to advance [hacia los policías] or by throwing the knife at the officers.” Nothing of this can be seen in the pictures.
Lowe’s family have called for the officers to be fired and charged with murder.
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