Nichols' murder again ignites an avalanche of police protest in the United States
- The 29-year-old African-American man was killed in early January by the five Memphis policemen, who died in the hospital three days after the beating. On Friday, the videos of the moment were made public and hundreds of people have made protests in different cities. They denounce police violence and systemic racism.
In the US, the debate on the Police model has been open for years, but the videos they released on January 28 have reinforced their anger and mass protests have opened in several states. The images show how the five Memphis policemen killed Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old African-American man.
The young man was paralysed on the night of 7 January, accusing him of committing a traffic offence when he was heading to his home. From the car that violently took him out, gas was thrown at his face, when trying to flee, he was shot with the electric gun and, being hit again in a few minutes, he was violently beaten. The videos show that he couldn't even defend. He died in the hospital on 9 January and the autopsy confirmed that the blows caused his death.
In addition to Memphis, other major cities in the United States have held numerous protests to denounce the death and call for the exclusion of police violence and systemic racism, such as New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Portland, Detroit, Atlanta and Newark.
At the Philadelphia protest on Friday, Talia Giles, a member of the communist party Party for Socialism and Liberation, denounced police action, according to The Guardian: “It shows total indifference to human life. It shows that the police, of any race, is going to scare people, because that's the mission of the system. Its goal is to fight citizenship through power.”
Congressman Coris Bush ends the murder in the police system: “In our country, the death of black people will continue to be allowed until the racist police system is dissolved. This system is based on slavery and government control.”
Five incarcerated police officers
The five police officers who caused Nichols' death are in prison charged with crimes such as second-degree murder and kidnapping. They may be sentenced to imprisonment for up to 60 years. The particularity of this case is that the five police officers are also African-American. “The fact that the five are African-American doesn’t say anything about institutional racism,” explains May Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology and a US Police conduct researcher, in a clarifying interview.
All five were members of the Memphis Police Scorpion Special Unit, and on Friday they reported the dissolution of the unit at the request of Nichols' family lawyers and activists. Scorpion was founded in October 2021 “to restore peace to neighborhoods in the most troubled areas.” Since its inception, the Unit has received numerous citizens’ criticisms for its “excessively harsh actions” and, above all, for having the poorest and most racist neighbours on the verge of going, as reported by the New York Times.
The murder involves more people: two new officers and two sheriff from the Memphis Police Department have been removed and two employees from the Fire Department. Attorney Ben Crump criticizes that one of these policemen is white and has been released “protected and hidden from public gaze.” The emergency personnel who treated Nichols are also under investigation.
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