In the videos from the 7 January arrest officers can be seen beating Tyre Nichols 29 but he does not seem to be resisting. US president Joe Biden called the horrific clip deeply painful. The assault was compared by the family lawyers to the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991. After the video was released there were peaceful protests in Memphis on friday night with some people blocking a major highway in the city. Smaller protests were held elsewhere in the country.
Banners with the words police terror and justice for Mr Nichols were carried by many protesters. Some individuals may find the descriptions of violence in this article distressing. At first the police claimed Mr Nichols had been stopped on suspicion of reckless driving but this claim has since been disproven. On January 10 he passed away in the hospital three days later. As were all five of the officers charged in the case Mr Nichols was black.
On Friday the Memphis police department made four graphic videos that cover more than an hour of the traffic stop and its violent aftermath. The main clasp shows officials hauling Mr Nichols out of his vehicle and yelling at him to get on the ground. I sat idle he states he is ordered to lie down flat by the officers. Get on the expletive ground. One officer yells and another officer can be heard saying tastify him an officer yells before i break your expletive put your hands behind your back. Mr Nichols tells the officers you guys are really doing a lot right now. I just want to get home.
Mr Nichols is hit with easeby one of the officers in a matter of seconds, but he manages to get up and run away. A different video from a CCTV camera mounted on a utility shaft shows officials thumping Mr Nichols subsequent to getting with him in a neighborhood. Mr Nichols is seen being held down by two officers while other officers alternately kick punch and strike him with an expandable baton. They lift him up against a squad car and drag him across the ground.
The third and fourth videos show police body camera footage of the beating, in which Mr Nichols is held down pepper sprayed and assaulted while he repeatedly shouts mom as Mr Nichols lies slouched against the car the videos also show officers talking about the incident.
Although neither claim is clear from the video that has been released some of them assert that Mr Nichols swung at them or reached for their firearms. Additionally officers can be heard saying that nothing was found in his vehicle. RowVaughn Wells Mr. Nichols mother claims that Memphis police officers murdered him while her son was only 230 feet (70 meters) away from home.
Mr. Nichols according to family members is the father of a son who is four years old and is an avid skateboarder who just started taking photography classes. He was employed by FedEx to deliver packages. Antonio Romanucci one of the lawyers said by definition of the law in this state, this young man was terrorized.
Greg Donaldson a professor at the john jay college of criminal justice in New York told the BBC that the video is appalling. He noted that the police officers ire seemed to grow as their incompetence seemed to be more revealed and that the lack of training stood out. He went on to say that the worst part of it was the inhumanity after the incident when officers left Mr Nichols laying there on the ground like a piece of garbage.
