The beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles in 1991, is far away. The United States has been able to see in 2023 the new, updated version of what true police brutality is.
Castlegate corner, in Memphis, is another one of those places that is already part of the map of American ignominy. That is where five Afro-American policemen hunted down another Afro-American citizen, Tyren Nichols, who had been stopped a while ago for no reason while driving his car and who managed to run away in a car. first moment, largely due to the incompetence of the same agents who later supposedly caused his death.
There was fear in Memphis of a social revolt over the content of the four videos of that meeting, which occurred on January 7. The fourth and last was devastating. He is the only one who does not have a voice, although the comments of the uniformed men in the other recordings are also devastating for them. This room is recorded from a police camera attached to a pole. It is very possible that the defendants were not aware of this circumstance
But that fourth video is highly graphic material and difficult to watch. Hurts. It’s disturbing.
Nichols is already defeated, the officers have him subdued, but they keep yelling at him, even when he’s handcuffed. There are two on him when another approaches and kicks him twice in the face, like a football. Then another arrives with the club and, on the rendered body, punishes him in the stomach and back. There are more blows, they treat him like a bunch, they deny him his human condition and to top it off, they make him stand up and another of the policemen punishes him with two punches directly to the face.
Then more officers and paramedics arrive and leave him lying on the side of a car. It takes 16 minutes until one of those paramedics decides to open the case and check the victim.
Nichols received at least nine savage blows, plus many others, in less than four minutes. When they took him away in the ambulance, his body looked as if he had lost his life. That was certified three days later, on January 109. The photos of his convalescence illustrate the dimension of the gratuitous beating, hitting for the sake of hitting, as pleasure
In another video, recorded by a uniform camera, the audio of that aggression is heard. It gives all the appearance that the policeman is covering the lens of the camera so that his misdeed is not seen (the scene is the same as in video number four), but it allows us to hear Nichols’ laments and pleas. Three times the victim shouts “mom”, something that will later be a reason for ridicule from the others. Apparently, Nichol’s mother, RowVaugn Wells, lives just 100 meters from the scene of the tragedy.
Here phrases of this guise are heard, pronounced by the agents of law and order. “I’m going to fuck you, give me your damn hands or do you want me to gas you again? Nichols was groggy from the blows.
When other agents arrived (after seeing the video, the sheriff suspended two of his officers from employment and salary), the five involved dedicated themselves to telling stories in the tavern style, lacking in professionalism. One explained that Nichols tried to take the gun from him but there is no image to confirm that version. Worst of all, none of the agents who arrived there express any blush.
Various experts and former police leaders paraded through the television channels to express their shock at the images. No one saw any need to reach such a situation and there was a general agreement that all this violence was gratuitous.
Some remarked that these images justify the prosecutor requesting the arrest of the five police officers (they are free after paying bail) and charging them with crimes such as murder and kidnapping. Others stressed the lack of command, the absence of someone giving orders and putting an end to this barbarity.
The first of the videos shows Nichols’ surprise at the stop they gave him. “I’m just trying to go home,” he explains to the agents. Faced with his aggressive attitude, he replies that “damn it, I haven’t done anything”, while they yell at him to lie down on the ground. He does so and tells them that he is on the ground, but the others continue with the same aggressiveness. In fact, they shoot him with the taser, which seems to work, and take out the pepper spray, although the agent sprays one of his colleagues. Nichols, seeing this madness, chooses to flee on foot. Until they hunted him down.
As soon as the broadcast took place, about an hour in total, the protesters, peacefully, began to shout in the streets of the Tennessee city the usual slogan of the fight, only changing the name: “Justice for Tyren”. The posters called for an end to “police terrorism”.
In many other cities in the country, citizens came out to express their repudiation of this new demonstration of police brutality, established in the institutionalized culture of many uniformed officers in the United States.
The videos do not explain any reason for the stop of Nichols driving his car. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn J. Davis said they have not been able to find evidence that Nichols was given a stop for reckless driving. He had no weapons or narcotics.
There were many condemnations about the images of those recordings. One of the most significant was that of President Joe Biden, who in a statement said he was “outraged and deeply hurt to see the horrible video of the beating that ended in the death of Tire Nichols.”
The president remarked that these images are the memory of the deep trauma that citizens of black and brown skin suffer every day. Biden insisted that despite that pain, the response of destruction and violence was not acceptable.
As has happened elsewhere in the United States, the city of Memphis was on high alert fearing an eruption of destruction in protest against another display of uniformed violence.
“It is similar to or even worse than the images of Rodney King,” said Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn J. Davis, another African American, to express the dimension of the matter, hours before the videos were broadcast on the municipal website.
King was brutally beaten in Los Angeles in 1991. There was a recording that sparked serious protests in the Californian metropolis and beyond. Now other cities are also on guard, fearing the domino effect.
The Los Angeles case is recorded as the first time that the general public viewed the police brutality that African-Americans generally suffered in “private” settings. From a human point of view, it couldn’t be worse. King survived and Nichols died at the hospital three days later. He is waiting for his burial. His funeral will be next Wednesday.
“My son looks down smiling. do you know? He is curious, he always said that one day he would be famous. He didn’t know that this was what he meant,” her mother, RowVaugn Wells, emotionally confessed. “I have not been able to see the video. The lawyers have told me that he asked for my help three times. They say it’s very horrible and please any of you who have children don’t watch it,” she pleaded.
“This is not a professional mistake. This is a failure of basic humanity, something egregious and reckless,” Chief Davis said of the uniform camera footage. “It’s tragic, I’ve seen the video and I’m horrified,” said Christopher Wray, director of the FBI. There were authorities who expressed fear that the night could be one of the harshest ever experienced in Memphis.
And that, unlike other similar situations, Chief Davis has already expelled the five involved from the force and the county attorney, Steve Mulroy, acted diligently. This Thursday he presented evidence before a grand jury, which upheld the charges of murder and kidnapping, among others. Now former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith were released Friday after posting bail of between $250,000 and $350,000.
Appeals for calm became more widespread as the hour drew near. “We are very pleased with the indictments,” said Rodney Wells, Tire’s stepfather. “More importantly, we want peace, we don’t want any kind of scandal or riot, we want peaceful protests,” he stressed. Its virulence was feared despite the substantial difference with other situations of this type, such as those that were generated in Ferguson (St. Louis) with the death of Michael Brown in August 2014 or in Minneapolis (Minnesota), in May 2020, with the death of George Floyd, to cite reference events.
In both cases, and in the vast majority of those that make up this long list of victims, the attackers were white police officers. In Memphis there is no racial component or not in the same sense, since the lawyer Benjamin Crump, who represents the Nichols family, observed a key element.
“We have never seen justice act so quickly in these matters,” he said.
In less than 20 days the alleged perpetrators are expelled and prosecuted. Crump dropped that, what a coincidence, such diligence has been exercised when the defendants are black officers. “This has to be the plan going forward, whether you are a black or white cop. There have been many other cases and they have taken months or years despite also having videos, ”he added.
His colleague Antonio Romanucci asked to dismantle the unit called Scorpio, of which the defendants were a part. This unit, with 40 agents, was activated to act in difficult neighborhoods. But, according to the complaints, it has served to cover up violence by black officers against black citizens. The Scorpio unit was put on hold this Friday, under investigation.