Kamala Harris condemns ‘violent act’ as Tyre Nichols laid to rest
There were tears and anger at the funeral of police beating victim Tyre Nichols, with US Vice President Kamala Harris leading calls for change.
World
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News.
American Vice President Kamala Harris led urgent calls for police reform as she attended the Memphis funeral for Tyre Nichols after he was pulled over on a traffic stop and allegedly beaten to death by a group of police officers in Memphis, US.
Introduced by the Reverend Al Sharpton, Ms Harris paid tribute to the “courage and grace” of Nichols’ parents throughout the shocking ordeal.
She was joined by civil rights leaders, politicians and the family members of other black Americans killed by police in violence that has fuelled a national reckoning on systemic racism and brutality in law enforcement.
“When I think about the courage and the strength of this family, I think it demands that we speak truth,” Ms Harris said.
“And with this, I will say this violent act was not in pursuit of public safety.
“This is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe,” she told the gathering at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church.
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, who delivered the eulogy at Nichols’ funeral, said the officers who beat him had abandoned the spirit of the movement led by Martin Luther King, who was shot dead in a racist attack in Memphis in 1968. African-Americans would never have been hired by Memphis police without the campaign led by King, said Sharpton.
“You didn’t get on the police department by yourself,” he said.
“People had to march and go to jail and some lost their lives to open the doors for you. And how dare you act like that sacrifice was for nothing?”
“We understand that there are needs to deal with crime. But you don’t fight crime by becoming criminals yourself,” he said.
“You don’t stand up to thugs in the street becoming thugs yourself.”
He acknowledged the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean, and others who attended the service, and recognised the vice-president.
Ms Harris hugged Nichols’ mother who took the podium and called for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which she co-authored as a senator.
She described the police officers’ “violent act” as “not in the interest of keeping the public safe”.
“Was [Tyre] not entitled to the right to be safe?” she asked.
“Tyre Nichols should have been safe.” She added that Biden would sign the bill if passed through Congress.
“We should not delay, and we will not be denied,” Harris said. “It is non-negotiable.”
The service had been scheduled to begin at 10.30am local time at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church but was delayed until 2pm (6am AEDT) due to inclement weather and travel delays.
At the funeral services for fatal police beutality victim #TyreNichols, VP Kamala Harris has joined us to stand with the family during this time. pic.twitter.com/qNFseXLSSy
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) February 1, 2023
Tamika Palmer – whose daughter Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky home during a botched raid in March 2020 – was among the mourners.
Also attending was Philonise Floyd, the younger brother of George Floyd, whose name reverberated across the nation following his May 2020 death after an ex-cop Minneapolis cop knelt on his neck and back for more than nine minutes.
“The family needs all the support that they can get,” Gwen Carr, whose son, Eric Garner, died after being placed in a chokehold by an NYPD officer in 2014, told CNN before attending the service.
“It’s so fresh for them but for me, it just digs into old wounds.”
As Nichols’ funeral took place, a new uproar was building over a bystander video from Los Angeles that appears to show the moments before police officers shot dead a double amputee, an African American, as he fled them on his stumps.
The officers involved said they had been responding to reports of an unprovoked stabbing carried out by a man in a wheelchair.
Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, and stepfather Rodney Wells called for legislative action to reform the police.
“There should be no other child that’s just suffered the way my son and all the other parents here have lost their children,” said his mother.
“This is a continuous fight that we have to fight for. We have to fight for justice. We cannot continue to let these people brutalise our kids,” said Rodney Wells.
President Joe Biden, who spoke last week with Nichols’ mother, has described himself as “outraged and deeply pained” by footage of his fatal beating.
He plans to meet with members of the Congressional Black Caucus at the White House on Thursday to discuss police reform legislation and other priorities, according to a White House spokesperson.
‘SO FAR OUT OF THE NORM’
Memphis police officers shouted 71 commands at Tyre Nichols within a 13-minute time span before officially announcing over the radio that he was in custody, according to a New York Times analysis.
The orders, described as “often simultaneous and contradictory,” were issued in two locations: first next to his car and the second to the area he fled and would be severely beaten and later die from his injuries, Fox News reported.
The newspaper analysed all available video, which includes footage from police body cameras and street cameras, released by the City of Memphis last Friday.
Despite modern police training calls for one officer at the scene to issue clear and specific commands to avoid escalation and confusion, Memphis police did the exact opposite with Nichols while their body cameras were rolling.
“This is just — it’s so far out of the norm,” Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, told the Times.
The city of Memphis said Tuesday it will release all audio and video footage of Mr Nichols’ fatal beating once it has completed its investigation.
“A premature release of the video and audio could compromise our administrative investigation,” Memphis Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Sink said in a statement.
But once the probe is complete, all footage will be made public, she said.
Professor Alpert explained that the phenomenon of “contempt of cop,” when officials would physically punish civilians for what they perceived as disrespect or disobedience was more rampant in the 1980s but started to phase out in the 1990s and 2000s even before the widespread introduction of body cameras.
Five former Memphis Police Department officers – Desmond Mills, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, Tadarrius Bean and Demetrius Haley – were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault and other offences in connection to Nichols’ death.
All five charged ex-police officers, to be arraigned in mid-February, are black.
Memphis police said the department relieved from duty a sixth officer, Preston Hemphill, who participated in the initial traffic stop and use of a Taser but was not directly involved in the first and second scenes where Nichols was physically abused and suffered severe injuries.
As of Tuesday local time, Hemphill, who is white, was not facing criminal or departmental charges.
MORE SUSPENSIONS AFTER FATAL BASHING
On Tuesday, Memphis police said a seventh unnamed officer had been suspended over the fatal beating of Nichols.
The city’s fire department also said it had terminated three firefighters who arrived at the scene but failed to provide adequate medical assistance to Nichols.
“The Memphis Police Department began administrative investigations on officers involved in the death of Tyre Nichols on January 7, 2023. On January 8, seven officers including Officer Preston Hemphill were relieved of duty,” the Memphis Police Department said in a statement.
Hemphill, who joined the force in 2018 and who is white, is suspended “pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation,” police spokeswoman Kim Elder said in a separate statement.
The Memphis Fire Department issued a statement that three of its firefighters who had responded to the police call had also been dismissed after they “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment” of Nichols at the scene of the assault.
According to a statement by Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, lawyers for Nichols’ family, Hemphill used a Taser against Nichols at the beginning of the confrontation.
But Hemphill’s lawyer told The Washington Post that he did not join the others at the scene of the beating.
Earlier, two emergency medical technicians had been fired.
EMT-Basic Robert Long and EMT-Advanced JaMichael Sandridge responded as members of Engine 55 to the brutal police bashing of Mr Nichols.
A statement from Memphis Fire Department Fire Chief Gina Sweat said the pair, along with Lieutenant Michelle Whitaker and the driver of Engine 55, were responding to a call of a person being pepper sprayed.
“Our investigation has concluded that the two EMTs responded based on the initial nature of the call (person pepper sprayed) and information they were told on the scene and failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr Nichols,” the statement read.
Despite locating Mr Nichols at 8.41pm, patient care was not initiated until an ambulance arrived at 8.55pm, it was revealed.
EMT-B Long, EMT-A Sandridge and Lt. Whitaker were terminated following the investigation.
“Their actions or inactions on the scene that night do not meet the expectations of the Memphis Fire Department and are not reflective of the outstanding service the men and women of the Memphis Fire Department provide on a daily basis,” Fire Chief Gina Sweat said in a statement.
— Memphis Fire Department (@MEM_Fire) January 30, 2023
Video taken during the deadly January 7 traffic stop showed Memphis officers aggressively attempt to detain FedEx driver Nichols, 29, who escaped as they tried to taser and pepper spray him.
The officers who pulled Nichols over claimed he was driving recklessly.
When the five officers caught up with Nichols, who was black, minutes later, they mercilessly beat him and used telescopic batons and a Taser on him as he begged for his mother, whose home was only about 60 yards away, leaving him unconscious.
Officers Tadarrius Bean, 24, Demetrius Haley, 30, Emmitt Martin III, 30, Desmond Mills Jr., 32, and Justin Smith, 28, who are all black, were fired on January 20 after an internal investigation found they had used excessive force and failed in their duties to intervene and render aid.
Days later, they were all charged with second-degree murder and other offences and booked into Shelby County jail. Each officer posted between $250,000 and $350,000 ($A350,000 -$A495,000) bail and has since been released.
It’s unclear what role Hemphill, who is white, had in the traffic stop. He has not been fired or charged with a crime at this time.
Officer Preston Hemphill has been relieved of duty during an ongoing investigation into the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols https://t.co/haGjoMD4GZpic.twitter.com/IXTy2WeSft
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 30, 2023
The release of the video showing the assault of Nichols prompted protests across the US against police violence. People took to the streets in New York, Atlanta, Memphis, Oakland and Baltimore over the weekend in what were largely peaceful protests.
Many have been sickened by the bodycam video from the night of the police altercation.
At one point, Nichols is lying on the ground defenceless as two cops hold him down while a third kicks him in the face multiple times.
A fourth cop bludgeons him with a baton while another yells, “Hit him!” The video showed Nichols was punched in the head at least six times.
Nichols is then handcuffed and propped up against the side of a nearby police car.
Officers are seen on the video milling about, though none appears to pay attention to the badly battered Nichols pleading for help.
Paramedics arrive but wait about 15 minutes to treat Nichols.
At least 20 minutes after that, an ambulance arrives and transports Nichols, who is complaining about shortness of breath, to St. Francis Hospital in critical condition.
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis condemned the incident, calling it “a failing of basic humanity toward another individual. This incident was heinous, reckless and inhumane,” adding it was “about the same if not worse” than the notorious 1991 beating of Rodney King, who was viciously assaulted by Los Angeles police during a traffic stop.
Three days after the beating, Nichols died due to the injuries sustained in the “use-of-force incident with officers,” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said.
A preliminary autopsy report concluded he had “suffered excessive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” although the official cause of his death has yet to be released.
The Memphis police force’s elite Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighbourhoods or “SCORPION” unit — of which the officers involved in Nichols’ beating were members — has been shut down because of the “heinous actions of a few,” the police department said.
“In the process of listening intently to the family of Tyre Nichols, community leaders and the uninvolved officers who have done quality work in their assignments, it is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the SCORPION unit,” the department wrote on Twitter.
“The officers currently assigned to the unit agree unreservedly with this next step. While the heinous actions of a few casts a cloud of dishonour on the title, SCORPION, it is imperative that we, the Memphis Police Department, take proactive steps in the healing process for all impacted.”
Bianca’s mum breaks silence over Kanye sex claim
Bianca Censori’s mother, Alexandra, has reacted to bombshell claims that her daughter’s famous husband, Kanye West, wanted to sleep with her.
Read more
Nicole Kidman in tense red carpet clash with star
A tense red carpet tussle between Nicole Kidman and Salma Hayek during Paris Fashion Week has prompted speculation of a feud between the two stars.
Read more