Tyre Nichols updates: Funeral renews calls for police reform as up to 20 hours of video yet to be released

In their remarks, religious leaders struck a delicate balance of urging support for a grieving family while reflecting a nation’s grief and anger, days after witnessing yet another police attack on a black American.

His family “endured the uncalled for … and unwarranted burden of grieving their loved one and demanding justice at the same time,” said Senior Pastor J Lawrence Turner.

“We pray for you that God will continue to give you strength because your strength has kept us grounded and helped us channel our anger constructively and turn our anger into action,” he added.

Up to 20 hours of footage related to the fatal arrest of Tyree Nichols has yet to be released by Memphis officials.

Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy told CNN on Wednesday that the video includes audio of what officers said after the fatal beating and after Nichols was rushed by ambulance to the hospital — where he never recovered.

To date, 56 minutes of footage has been released to the public as four separate videos.

Three of the videos come from Memphis police officers’ body camera footage, while the fourth is from a pole-mounted security camera.

Mr Mulroy said it was up to the city of Memphis and the Memphis police to decide when to share the full footage with the public, as he revealed the district attorney’s office was considering bringing more charges in the case.

Vice President Kamala Harris urged Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, bipartisan police reform legislation that passed the House in 2021 but stalled in a deadlocked Senate with Republican opposition.

The bill, named in honor of the black man killed by Minneapolis police officers in 2020, was authored by then-Senator Harris.

“Let the memory of Tire light the path to peace and justice,” Ms. Harris said in her brief remarks.

Vice President Kamala Harris was invited to attend the funeral of Tire Nichols by his mother and stepfather, and the Rev. Al Sharpton invited her to address the congregation gathered in Memphis on Wednesday.

He told his parents that “the people of our country mourn with you” and praised them for their “strength, courage and grace.”

Wednesday’s funeral for Tyree Nichols in Memphis had a renewed call for passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, federal legislation that passed the House of Representatives in 2021 but has otherwise stalled in Congress.

“The police are partisan agents like everyone else in power,” he writes The independentJosh Marcus, reflecting on his coverage of policing and criminal justice. “It is vital that we take their claims with a grain of salt.”

The now-disbanded Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION unit – which stands for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace to Our Neighborhoods” – was introduced in October 2021. It was disbanded following the death of Tyre Nichols.

The independentGraeme Massie examines several similar controversial units in US departments that have been accused of abuse and excessive violence.

Far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene invoked the fatal shooting of Capitol rioter Ashli ​​Babbitt after reporting on Tire Nichols, who was fatally beaten by police.

He then suggested that people who have been jailed for their roles in the uprising face a “civil rights violation” in prison.

Ms. Greene went on to say that Congress had done nothing to address the treatment of other participants in the attack, many of whom remain incarcerated pending their respective trials.

There is a simple reason for this: Mrs. Babbitt was part of a crowd actively trying to breach a barricaded door to a restricted area. She was shot by an officer while trying to climb out of a window that her partners had broken. Federal prosecutors closed the case and the officer was cleared of wrongdoing.

A leaked incident report into the arrest and fatal beating of Tyree Nichols by Memphis police officers contains glaring inaccuracies that were later revealed after body camera and surveillance footage were released.

The report, written two hours after the Jan. 7 beating of Nichols, alleged the 29-year-old was “enraged” and refused legal custody, tried to fight with officers and also tried to grab an officer’s gun during an initial stop. circulation.

Four of the five former Memphis Police Department officers charged in the fatal beating of Tyree Nichols were suspended or reprimanded in previous incidents while working for the department, according to newly disclosed personnel records.

The officers faced little to no consequences, according to city records of their cases, and were commended on at least two occasions, with other officers describing their actions as isolated incidents.