If there's one thing about Tyre Nichols that says a lot about who he was as a man, it was the relationship he had with his mother, RowVaughn Wells. "He has a tattoo of my name on his arm," she said. "My son loved me to death, and I love him to death."
Tyre Nichols with his mother, RowVaughn Wells. FAMILY PHOTO
Nichols was a Sacramento, Calif., native. At 150 pounds he was a rail of a man. He was a father, too. He came to Memphis just before the pandemic locked the world down. He moved in with his mom and stepfather, and got a job at FedEx.
When the 29-year-old wasn't working, he kept up with his passions. Skateboarding was one of them, and so was photography. He had a talent for capturing sunsets, especially.
His friends say he was a free spirit who always wanted to be famous … but clearly not for the reason that made him so.
At a press conference Friday, Wells said, "No mother, no mother, no mother, should go through what I'm going though right now, no mother, lo lose their child to the violent way I lost my child."
RowVaughn Wells said she didn't watch the video of her son's beating, but the nation did.
It all started on January 7, when body cam video shows Nichols being yanked 猛拉 from his car.
Police Officer: "I'm fixin to taze you. Get on the ground!"
Nichols: "Stop, okay, stop, alright, okay, dude, there it is."
The reason, say police? Reckless driving.
Nichols: "Okay, you guys are really doing a lot right now, I'm just trying to go home!"
Police: "Get on your stomach!"
We don't see what led up to the confrontation, but the responding officers are clearly angry. After the tussle, pepper spray, and more threats of tasing, Nichols got away.
Police found him not long after, about 100 yards from his mother's home, where he cried out to her for help.
Nichols: "Mom!! Mom!!"
"I was telling someone that I had this really bad pain in my stomach earlier, not knowing what had happened," Wells said. "But once I found out what happened, that was my son's pain that I was feeling. And I didn't even know."
A remotely-controlled camera mounted on a pole in the neighborhood captured perhaps the most violent moments...
Officer: "I'm gonna baton the f*** out you."
There are plenty of places you can go to see what happened next: officers seem to take turns kicking, punching and beating Nichols with a baton 警棍. It's unrelenting. When they're done, he's dragged and propped up against a car. And then, they do nothing. Nothing to render aid to Nichols, and certainly don't offer him comfort.
The video shows one officer stopping to tie his shoe; another is trying to get his radio to work. There was laughing and cussing, all while Nichols was suffering life threatening injuries.
It was a least 20 minutes before the ambulance even arrived.
Nichols died in the hospital three days later.
The last picture his mother has of him, is this:
Less than three weeks later, five officers, all of them Black, all of them part of a now-disbanded specialized street crimes unit called Scorpion, were fired and indicted for crimes, including second degree murder.
不到三周后，五名警察(都是黑人)被解雇，并被指控犯有包括二级谋杀在内的罪行
Officials later announced two Memphis Fire Department employees and two sheriff's deputies were also relieved of their duties.
That swift action 迅速行动 , said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, was crucial. "This is the blueprint going forward for any time any officers, whether they be Black or white, will be held accountable 任何时候，任何官员，无论他们是黑人还是白人，都将被追究责任," Crump said Friday.
The quick action against the officers may have also helped quell violent protests that so many feared would erupt in the wake of the video's release. 针对警察的迅速行动可能也有助于平息暴力抗议活动。许多人担心，视频公布后，暴力抗议活动会爆发
There was outrage, to be sure, but it was mostly calm – just what Tyre Nichols' mom had asked for, and so did the president.
"It has a lot to say and do with the image of America," President Biden said Friday. "It has a lot to do with whether or not we are the country that we say we are."
For Memphis, the death of a Black man at the hands of Black police officers is a new kind of pain. This was, after all, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated after a life of preaching against man's inhumanity to man.
Fifty-five years later, it seems we've still failed to heed his warning.
After officials in Memphis released graphic footage Friday depicting the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, at the hands of police, members of Congress said Sunday they need to revive their effort to pass substantial police reforms.
The five officers involved in the deadly encounter were charged with murder, kidnapping, assault and other charges on Thursday. All five officers were dismissed from the police department, and the specialized policing unit they were a part of was disbanded Saturday.
Police reform talks fell apart in Congress in 2021 after lawmakers failed to strike a bipartisan deal. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Sunday that while passing those reforms would be “the right starting point,” it is ultimately “not enough.”
Durbin said that while he knows law enforcement officers risk their lives for Americans every day, many of these same officers are engaging in “horrible conduct” that needs to be changed for the better.
“What we saw on the streets of Memphis was just inhumane, horrible,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “I don’t know what created this rage in these police officers that they would congratulate themselves for beating a man to death. But that is literally what happened.”
Durbin added that he would not rule out a federal investigation into the entire Memphis Police Department following Nichols’ death.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said he thinks that while there is reform that can happen, no amount of legislature could account for the “evil” and “lack of respect for human life” that he saw in the footage. 虽然可以进行改革，但再多的立法机构也无法解释他在视频中看到的“邪恶”和“对人类生命缺乏尊重”。
He said he does not believe those five officers represent the vast majority of law enforcement. 他不认为这五名执法人员代表了绝大多数执法人员。
“We’ll look at what we think makes sense to help this, to make sure they have the proper training, but no amount of training is going to change what we saw in that video,” Jordan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
Some policing reforms were already in place in Memphis at the time of Nichols’ death, including a requirement for officers to de-escalate situations where they saw others using excessive force. Ben Crump, the attorney representing Nichols’ family, said Sunday he thinks the culture of policing is to blame, as it has normalized the use of extreme force. 警察文化是罪魁祸首，因为它使极端武力的使用正常化。
“Just as much those officers are responsible for the death of Tyre Nichols, so is the implicit bias police culture that exists in America,” Crump told ABC’s “This Week.”
Crump said he thinks this culture will only begin to change if federal police reforms are implemented. Without them, he said, “We’re going to continue to see these hashtags proliferate.”
While reforms and training can have an impact, another effective deterrent to this behavior is when officers around the country see what will happen to them if they engage in this kind of violence, said Jason Armstrong, former Ferguson, Missouri, police chief. Armstrong led the Ferguson police force after it was overhauled following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014.
Armstrong said since the five officers were fired and charged, officers are seeing that this behavior is not going to be tolerated 这种行为是不能容忍的. He said for some officers, it doesn’t matter if they are wearing body cameras or if there are witnesses, they are still going to resort to violence and that culture is what needs to be rooted out.
“Unfortunately, violence is what was natural for these individuals in this instance,” Armstrong told ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “And that’s where we have to do a better job as law enforcement leaders, is identifying these individuals that are inside our organizations and our police departments and getting them out of the profession before something like this happens.”
Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic videos and descriptions of violence.
CNN—
Protesters once again took to the streets over the weekend to decry 谴责 police brutality after the release of video depicting the violent Memphis police beating of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, and more gatherings and vigils are planned for Sunday.
Nichols could be heard yelling for his mother in the video of the January 7 encounter, which begins with a traffic stop and goes on to show officers repeatedly beating the young Black man with batons, punching him and kicking him – including at one point while his hands are restrained behind his back.
He was left slumped to the ground in handcuffs, and 23 minutes passed before a stretcher arrived at the scene. Nichols was eventually hospitalized and died three days later. 他戴着手铐倒在地上，23分钟后担架才到达现场。尼科尔斯最终住院治疗，三天后死亡。
“All of these officers failed their oath, 所有这些警察都没有履行誓言，” Nichols’ family attorney Ben Crump told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday. “They failed their oath to protect and serve. Look at that video: Was anybody trying to protect and serve Tyre Nichols?”
A brutal beating. Cries for his mom. 23-minute delay in aid. Here are the key revelations from the Tyre Nichols police videos
Demonstrators marched through New York City, Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, among other cities across the nation on Saturday, raising signs bearing Nichols’ name and calling for an end to abuses of authority. 周六，示威者在纽约、亚特兰大、波士顿、巴尔的摩、洛杉矶、旧金山和波特兰等全国其他城市游行，高举印有尼科尔斯名字的标语，呼吁结束滥用权力
“To see the events unfold how they’ve unfolded, with this Tyre Nichols situation, is heartbreaking. I have a son,” said Kiara Hill, standing at a makeshift memorial near the Memphis corner where Nichols was beaten. “And Tyre, out of the officers on the scene, he was the calmest.”
Since Nichols’ death, the backlash has been relatively swift. The five Memphis officers involved in the beating – who are also Black – were fired and charged with murder and kidnapping in Nichols’ death. The unit they were part of was disbanded, and state lawmakers representing the Memphis area began planning police reform bills.
Crump said that the quick firing and arrests of the police officers and release of video should be a “blueprint” for how police brutality allegations are handled going forward. He applauded Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis for arresting and charging the officers within 20 days.
“When you see police officers commit crimes against citizens, then we want you to act just as swiftly and show as the chief said, the community needs to see it, but we need to see it too when it’s White police officers,” Crump said.
Memphis police shut down SCORPION unit tied to deadly beating
By now, we’ve all seen the video of the horrific Tyre Nichols police encounter. The various tactical and ethical failures of the officers involved are self-evident. It is now time to begin assessing the response of the relevant authorities.
While the reaction of any thinking person to this event is primarily emotional, the case is now entering the legal realm.
尽管任何有思想的人对这一事件的反应主要是情感上的，但此案现在已进入法律领域。
Such an investigation should focus on issues like how officers were recruited into the unit; the unit’s training and control; and any allegations of past bad acts by unit members. 这样的调查应该集中在一些问题上，比如军官是如何被招募到这个单位的;单位的训练和控制;以及任何关于小组成员过去不良行为的指控。
In one video, Tyre Nichols is about 17 years old, skating along a mini ramp as the sun paints his hometown of Sacramento, Calif., bright orange. In another clip, Nichols trips off his skateboard while practicing a trick but remains unfazed. Instead, he tries again and again until he eventually gets it right.
Nichols' childhood friend, Austin Robert, recorded these videos more than a decade ago. At the time, filming was simply a creative outlet for Robert, Nichols and their small circle of friends.
But recently, the recordings have taken on new meaning. One video in particular has been shared countless times on social media in an effort to remember Nichols' life — not just his death or the harrowing way he was killed.
"I want him to be remembered as the kid smiling in the skate video and not the kid that was fighting for his life," Robert said.
Tyre Nichols and Austin Robert would spend their high school summers filming skateboard tricks.
Nichols, a father of a 4-year-old son and FedEx worker, died on Jan. 10 in Memphis after being brutally beaten by five Memphis police officers at a traffic stop three days earlier. He was 29 years old. The officers have since been fired, arrested and charged with his murder. They are scheduled to appear for a bond arraignment on Feb.17.
Over the past few weeks, people across the country braced themselves for footage from the night Nichols was beaten — footage city officials described as heinous and inhumane.
That's when Robert's old home videos resurfaced. Attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Nichols' family, was among those who shared Robert's archival footage. He wrote on Twitter: "This is who Tyre Nichols was — a talented and dedicated skateboarder with SO much life left to live."
"He never wanted to quit"
Across the country, skateboard communities have been holding memorials in honor of Nichols and his love for the sport. Regency Skate Park in Sacramento, where Robert and Nichols met when they were teenagers, is organizing a candlelight vigil on Monday. Nichols' mother, RowVaughn Wells, has also been raising money to build a memorial skate park dedicated to her son 筹集资金建一个纪念滑板公园献给她的儿子。.
According to Robert, Nichols was long fascinated with skateboards before he built up the courage to ride one. One day, Nichols decided to try it out and he became committed to the sport from that day forward.
Nearly every day for eight years, he and Robert would meet up with their group of friends and practice skateboard tricks until it got dark. Thursday's were known as "Thursdays with Tyre," said Robert. If the two of them were not at a park, they were at McDonalds choosing from the Dollar Menu.
What he remembers most vividly about Nichols was his positivity and "infectious" laughter.
"He always tried to bring everybody together and put a smile on anybody else's face before his own," Robert said.
He added that Nichols was like a "scientist" when it came to his dedication to land new skateboard tricks.
"He analyzed everything he was doing wrong and why he wasn't learning the trick and change all those little things until eventually he would have it down consistently," Robert said. "He never wanted to quit."
Friends remember how supportive he always was
Nichols was equally supportive in seeing his friends' succeed at skateboarding. If his friend was learning a new move, Nichols would set his board down, grab a camera and patiently wait until his friend mastered the trick, even if it took hours, according to Robert.
Nichols' childhood friend Jerome Neal also remembered how encouraging he could be, saying Nichols was the kind of guy who could "make you feel like you could do anything."
The two also met at Regency skate park during their high school years. Aside from skating, Neal said, Nichols loved listening to music on his iPod and practicing his videography skills — something the two of them continued to bond over when they became adults.
In November, when Neal visited Memphis, he told Nichols that he planned to start a video production company soon, in part because of how supportive Nichols was throughout the years.
"He was the very first person I told, and he was the first person I said I would want to hire when I got it going," Neal said.
