MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Authorities released video footage Friday showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by five Memphis police officers who held the Black motorist down and repeatedly struck him with their fists, boots and batons as he screamed for his mother.
The video is filled with violent moments showing the officers, who are also Black, chasing and pummeling Nichols and leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they fist-bump and celebrate their actions.
The footage emerged one day after the officers were charged with murder in Nichols’ death. The chilling images of another Black man dying at the hands of police renewed tough questions about how fatal encounters with law enforcement continue even after repeated calls for change.
Protesters gathered for mostly peaceful demonstrations in multiple cities, including Memphis, where several dozen demonstrators blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River toward Arkansas. Semi-trucks were backed up for a distance. In Washington, dozens of protestors gathered in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House and near Black Lives Matter Plaza.
The recording shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack. The Nichols family legal team has likened the assault to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.
After the first officer roughly pulls Nichols out of a car, Nichols can be heard saying, “I didn’t do anything,” as a group of officers begins to wrestle him to the ground.
One officer is heard yelling, “Tase him! Tase him!”
Nichols calmly says, “OK, I’m on the ground.”
“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Nichols says. “I’m just trying to go home.”
“Stop, I’m not doing anything,” he yells moments later.
Nichols can then be seen running as an officer fires a Taser at him. The officers then start chasing Nichols.
GOPUSA Editor: Click through to watch the video on You Tube.
Other officers are called, and a search ensues before Nichols is caught at another intersection. The officers beat him with a baton, and kick and punch him.
Security camera footage shows three officers surrounding Nichols as he lies in the street cornered between police cars, with a fourth officer nearby.
Two officers hold Nichols to the ground as he moves about, and then the third appears to kick him in the head. Nichols slumps more fully onto the pavement with all three officers surrounding him. The same officer kicks him again.
The fourth officer then walks over, draws a baton and holds it up at shoulder level as two officers hold Nichols upright, as if he were sitting.
“I’m going to baton the f— out you,” one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Nichols. The officer strikes Nichols on the back with the baton three times in a row.
The other officers then appear to hoist Nichols to his feet, with him flopping like a doll, barely able to stay upright.
An officer then punches him in the face, as the officer with the baton continues to menace him. Nichols stumbles and turns, still held up by two officers. The officer who punched him then walks around to Nichols’ front and punches him four more times. Then Nichols collapses.
Two officers can then be seen atop Nichols on the ground, with a third nearby, for about 40 seconds. Three more officers then run up, and one can be seen kicking Nichols on the ground.
As Nichols is slumped up against a car, not one of the officers renders aid. The body camera footage shows a first-person view of one of them reaching down and tying his shoe.
It takes more than 20 minutes after Nichols is beaten and on the pavement before any sort of medical attention is provided, even though two fire department officers arrived on the scene with medical equipment within 10 minutes.
Throughout the videos, officers make claims about Nichols’ behavior that are not supported by the footage or that the district attorney and other officials have said did not happen. In one of the videos, an officer claims that during the initial traffic stop Nichols reached for his gun before fleeing and almost had his hand on the handle, which is not shown in the video.
After Nichols is in handcuffs and leaning against a police car, several officers say that he must have been high. Later an officer says no drugs were found in his car, and another officer immediately counters that Nichols must have ditched something while he was running away.
Authorities have not released an autopsy report, but they have said there appeared to be no justification for the traffic stop, and nothing of note was found in the car.
The video raised questions about the role and possible culpability of the other officers at the scene, in addition to the five who were charged. The footage shows a number of other officers standing around after the beating.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis has said other officers are under investigation for their part in the arrest.
Davis described the five officers’ actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane.”
During the traffic stop, the video shows the officers were “already ramped up, at about a 10,” she said. The officers were “aggressive, loud, using profane language and probably scared Mr. Nichols from the very beginning.”
“Police are trained to understand that people might flee just because they are scared,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who studies use of force.
Cities across the country braced for demonstrations. Protests were planned Friday night in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York City and Portland, Oregon.
Nichols’ relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully.
“I don’t want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said Thursday. “If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully.”
Christopher Taylor was one of the protesters at the Interstate 55 bridge on Friday. He said he watched the video. The Memphis native said it was horrible that the officers appeared to be laughing as they stood around after the beating.
“I cried,” he said. “And that right there, as not only a father myself but I am also a son, my mother is still living, that could have been me.”
Speaking at the White House, President Joe Biden said Friday that he was “very concerned” about the prospect of violence and called for protests to remain peaceful.
Biden said he spoke with Nichols’ mother earlier in the day and told her that he was going to be “making a case” to Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act “to get this under control.” The legislation, which has been stalled, is meant to tackle police misconduct and excessive force and boost federal and state accountability efforts.
Court records showed that all five former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — were taken into custody.
The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond and been released from custody by Friday morning, according to court and jail records.
Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law.
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said in a statement late Friday that two deputies who appeared on the scene after the beating have been relieved of duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, condemned the alleged actions of the Memphis officers.
“The event as described to us does not constitute legitimate police work or a traffic stop gone wrong. This is a criminal assault under the pretext of law,” Yoes said in a statement.
As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police department’s “full and complete cooperation.”
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Associated Press reporters Aaron Morrison in New York; Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; and Rebecca Reynolds in Lexington, Kentucky, contributed to this report.
© 2023 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
So, we got lots of video of the Police crimes, but absolutely no video of what crimes the police accused him of? HuH? Was maybe the minor traffic offense not so minor? Just what did he do or say to set off the darkest angels of these officer’s (yes Human) nature? What did their leadership do so politically correct in lack of training or lack of supervision, that made them feel so vulnerable to attack themselves that they lashed out so violently at their victim,,,Let me guess, out of the 5 cops and one victim, none ever had a father present in their lives more than the 15 minutes of passion used to create them. Too much and too many born of passion these days in place of the love that used to create, in goodness but now all we get are the political passions that consume, divide and create evil. Seems like there is plenty of social guilt to go around, beginning with social programs that feed the body at the expense of others, totally ignoring of the feeding of the spirit within,,, programs that preprogram humans to focus on power, entitlement, self- interest and self-indulgence, where when vengeance is indulged in, this kind of evil and ugly is all what is produced. If these are the first body cam shots seen of any of these officers by the supervising controlling Police leaders, someone was asleep at the wheel.
I also wonder, WHY this ‘special unit’, was out doing normal traffic duty??
I watched the videos last night that were released and, as usual, it wasn’t footage of the entire incident. Enough is shown to stir up emotionand to try to shape public opinion. To me, some of it looked staged. Enough information is not given to arrive at a sound conclusion.
That being said—wherever there is wrong—be it on Nichols’ side or the police side—should be dealt with appropriately. Criminals should pay for their wrongs, but if there is inappropriate action by police, then they should likewise be dealt with appropriately.
I’m not seeing enough here to conclude one way or the other—coming across to me as more of a PR stunt for the police than anything. There is a whole lot missing here.
The only thing I have not heard (other than the claim that the guy was “driving erratically”) is whether or not he was high on something that was causing the erratic driving. We don’t see what was going on before the guy was attacked by the police. I’m sure this will be addressed one way or the other in an autopsy.
SO true. Looking at the video, he seemed PERFECTLY LEGITIMATELY in that left hand turn lane..
So i see NO evidence of erratic driving.
So if Tyre Nichols would have complied with the original officers’ directions NONE of THIS would have taken place.
BUT WHAT right, gave the officers the authority to just GRAB AND DRAG HIM Out of his car?
Did Tyre fail to comply? I don’t know if that is the case. It will all come out in the trial but it seems that Tyre was not given much of a chance to comply. What I saw was the cop opening the car door and dragging him out of the car immediately. I don’t know what went on before that.
This death is truly shocking and seems to have no rhyme or reason. Added to the mystery of why it happened, I understand Biden called it a White supremacy attack, as did one of the nbc stations…. If this brutal attack is as seen, Tyre seemed innocent of anything worth more than a ticket. If Biden is going to pass a law honoring Floyd , as awful as that was to watch, Floyd wasn’t an innocent, he was heavily intoxicated with fentanyl, and a danger to others if he had he started up his car, and, yes, his death was not deserved, but what happened to this young man is beyond comparison. To canonize Floyd is a mistake, renaming the bill would be proper, unless it is another piece of crippling legislation politicians sneak in.
TIHS guy certainly seemed more innocent than Floyd EVER DID!
I.A.W. U.S. Census & FBI (Table 43a)
Black males make up about 7% of the U.S. population but every year commit ~56% of all the murders and ~64% of all robberies in the U.S… Every year in the U.S. there are ~6,000 African-Americans men, women and children killed and 92% of them were killed by fellow African-Americans.
How many bodies do you have to step over to get to the one that you think is important only because a White police officer was involved as was in the George Floyd riots, burnings and looting?
Here we have 5 Black police officers beating to death a unarmed Black man during a traffic stop and there is not a peep from the Black community or the Democrat controlled news/propaganda outlets.
What do you think would be happening IF a White police officer was involved??
It certainly wouldn’t be the peaceful protesting we’re seeing.!! CITIES would be in flames.
At least this should be that 5 self-serving cops get their day in court ASAP and let the healing begin. Bet that Burn, Loot, Maime group will make a few million for the pockets as they did before. Check how some went from low income to multi-million homes/properties. Never let a unlawful situation go to waste.
My impression is this is a massive error in evaluating and hiring police officers. These guys have more of a gang mentality than a police mentality. Of course one of the reasons (or excuses) for hiring these miscreants is the problem police departments are having in hiring people at all, much less the most highly qualified applicants. And guess what? That is the result of the overall progressive demeaning of the law enforcement profession for the last few years. We are reaping what the progressive socialists have sowed.
The sound in the video is notgood. The sound toward the end of the video seems cut off. I think ,the cop said ,he Steered his car toward them and tried to hit them ?? But I’m not sure. I’ve tried to watch the video again and the sound is Worse the end of the video the cops are trying to explain what happened.
With all the street cams out there, i am SHOCKED there’s no camera footage, showing whether he WAS Driving eratically, or trying to ram them with his car….