Police officials unveiled video recordings from Friday that depicted the aggressive altercation between Memphis police and Tyre Nichols, who passed away in the days after being apprehended for reckless driving. This instance has been compared to the 1991 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles.
Four videos were shown, some taken from body cameras and others filmed with a pole camera in the area. The footage from January 7th showed the traffic stop.
The film showed officers brandishing a baton, punching and kicking Nichols. He is seen struggling with the officers multiple times before he is beaten with a baton and brought to the ground. A police officer can be heard saying, “Give me your f—— hands!” and “I’m going to baton the f— out of you!” Nichols cried out for his mother during the incident.
An ambulance was seen in the video 30 minutes in, and Nichols was given medical attention.
The video caused protests in Memphis and other areas. President Joe Biden was “outraged and deeply pained” by the video and spoke with 15 mayors to stay in contact with the expected protests. Protesters blocked a highway in Memphis and congregated in Atlanta and Times Square. The police unions of California and Hawaii issued a statement denouncing the “killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the five cowardly former Memphis police officers.”
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said that the video reminded him of the Rodney King case, and that Nichols did not survive the incident.
On January 7th, Nichols was detained for reckless driving, but Police Chief Cerelyn Davis reported an inability to find any evidence of probable cause. He was injured in the confrontation with the police and was taken to a hospital in critical condition where he later passed away. The five officers were identified and fired on the 20th of January. On Thursday, the officers were arrested and charged with felonies.
Law&Crime host Terri Austin, an attorney and legal analyst, could not believe what she saw when she watched the footage of the incident involving Terrion Nichols. Her first words were “Oh my God, why?”. She wanted to understand what caused the police officers to attempt to stop Nichols and why they dragged him out of his car without explaining the reason or trying to defuse the situation. She questioned what it was about his driving that caused them to beat him so harshly.
Austin noted that the timing of the video’s release on Friday night was intentional as there had not been much time between the officers’ firing and arrests. She said that Memphis wanted to make sure the city was safe and she understood why the city chose to do this. She stated that the video alone was enough evidence to convict the officers and that she did not think they would have been charged so quickly if not for the video footage.
Austin compared this case to that of Rodney King in the 1990s and noted the differences between the two: King survived and the officers in his case were white whereas the officers in Memphis were black. Both cases, however, began with driving infractions which led to the violent beatings of the two men.
Austin, being a mother, lamented the tragedy of the situation and expressed her inability to imagine the horror of a violent death.