Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Protests erupted across the United States on Friday night against the police abuse following the release of police body camera footage showing the “inconceivable” fatal beating of Tire Nichols by police in Memphis, in Tennessee, during an arrest.
Crowds poured into the streets of the country’s main cities over the explosive video, which the Memphis police commissioner warned displayed “acts that defy humanity.”
In Memphis, some 300 protesters occupied the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge shortly after the police department released the graphic images Friday night and closed all four lanes of the highway, with chants of “no justice, no peace.” , according to local media.
The protesters said they wanted to speak with the city’s mayor, Jim Strickland, and Police Department Chief Cerelyn Davis.
The police of the southern city published this afternoon the videos of the violent arrest of Tire Nichols carried out by several policemen, after stopping his car for an alleged traffic violation.
The harshest images are those captured by a surveillance camera on a streetlighta, where it is seen from above how the agents kicked, some of them in the head, and hit Nichols with a baton.
Hundreds of people came out to protest in New York, Atlanta, Washington DC and Detroit.
In New York, more than 100 people demonstrated in Times Square, in the center of Manhattan, according to local media. The city’s mayor, Eric Adams, called on citizens Friday to protest peacefully, calling Nichols’ beating by police “outrageous.”
In Chicago, hundreds of people chanted: “From Memphis to Chicago, these killer cops have got to go.” Some carried signs reading “Justice for Tire Nichols” and “End Police Terror.”
“inhumane” acts
President Joe Biden said he was “outraged and shocked” after viewing the videos and asked people not to resort to violence to express their “justifiable” anger.
.@POTUS: “Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tire Nichols’ death.”
Read the full statement: https://t.co/oeTKTfLfA1
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) January 28, 2023
The leader of the Democratic minority in Congress, Hakeem Jeffries, described the facts as “inadmissible” and called for justice to be done in the case.
Five Memphis police officers involved in the beating of Nichols have been fired and face various criminal charges in the youth’s death.
Congresswoman Coris Bush, who represents a district in Missouri that saw strong protests after the police death of a young African-American man in 2014, said the charges are “not enough.”
“Our country will continue to authorize the death of black people until (…) the racist police system, based on slavery and government control, is dismantled,” the House of Representatives lawmaker wrote in a statement.
The organization Amnesty International also criticized the actions of the Memphis police after the images were released. “The video shows truly violent, disturbing and inhuman acts (…) no one should fear that they will be killed during a traffic stop,” he said in a statement.
Attorney General Merrick Garland promised this Friday that there will be an investigation into the death of Tire Nichols at the hands of five police officers. in Memphis (Tennessee) and asked that any protests that there may be about this event be peaceful.
The US police have been singled out by human rights organizations for using violence disproportionately towards the African-American population.
Nearly a third of all people killed by police in the US in 2021 were African Americans, despite being only 13% of the country’s population, according to the organization Mapping Police Violence.
It may interest you:
– Memphis authorities release video of violent police arrest that caused the death of Tire Nichols
– Biden spoke to the parents of Tire Nichols, the African-American who died after a violent police arrest in Memphis
– Lawyer for the family of Tire Nichols confirmed that the victim received “an absolute beating” for three minutes