The death of an African American after his brutal arrest by police, video of which is due to be released on Friday, rekindles fears of racial tensions in the United States where President Joe Biden has appealed for calm and demanded an investigation fast.
Five police officers were charged and jailed on Thursday for murder following the death in early January of 29-year-old African-American Tire Nichols, authorities said.
These police officers from Memphis, a large city in Tennessee, all African-Americans, are the subject of several charges, including murder, assault and kidnapping, prosecutor Steve Mulroy announced at a press conference. .
US President Joe Biden called in a statement for a “prompt, complete and transparent investigation” into this tragedy.
Video of the arrest will be released Friday after 7 p.m. EST.
“I expect you will be outraged” when you see these images, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis admitted on Wednesday.
Deeming the organization of demonstrations likely, she called not to “incite violence or destruction”.
In his press release, Joe Biden says he joins the family of Tire Nichols in calling for the demonstrations to be “peaceful”, because “anger is understandable, but violence is never acceptable”.
“Beating”
On January 7, the police wanted to arrest Tire Nichols for a traffic violation. As officers approached, a “confrontation took place” and “the suspect fled”, according to law enforcement.
Caught up, Tire Nichols was finally arrested. Complaining of having difficulty breathing, he was hospitalized. He died three days later.
The details of the arrest are not yet clear: the video has so far only been shown to relatives and their lawyers.
According to them, “the police beat him to the point that he was unrecognizable”. “It is a pure and simple beating, without interruption, of this young man for three minutes,” said lawyer Antonio Romanucci.
What happened was “inadmissible” and “criminal” and “should not have happened”, hammered David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, “shocked” and “disgusted” by what he saw. “In a word, it’s absolutely appalling,” he said.
The indictment of the police “gives us hope as we continue to demand justice for Tyre”, commented the lawyers for the family of the victim, including the famous Ben Crump – who had represented the family of George Floyd.
Thursday, evoking his meetings with relatives of Tire Nichols, prosecutor Steve Mulroy painted the portrait of an “almost perfect son”, “a jovial and happy person, who loved skateboarding”.
The five officers charged were fired last week. The internal police investigation concluded that they had used excessive force.
Other officers are still under investigation.
The agents in question are “directly responsible for the physical violence committed on Mr. Nichols”, Cerelyn Davis explained on Wednesday, believing that it was “not just a professional error, but a lack of humanity. “, an act” heinous, irresponsible and inhuman. »
Police brutality
The case finds a particular echo in a country still marked by the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, in May 2020, and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, against racism and police violence, which had followed.
And the drama has reignited the debate on police violence in the country.
“We cannot ignore the fact that deadly police interventions have affected black people more,” recalled Joe Biden.
The Democratic president is urging Congress to pass a police reform bill, passed in the House of Representatives in 2021 but stalled in the Senate.
Since the death of George Floyd, the US Congress has been unable to pass any ambitious police reform in the United States, including a ban on chokeholds.
NAACP civil rights organization president Derrick Johnson called on congressional lawmakers to watch the video of the arrest and then take action. “We can name all the victims of police brutality, but we can’t name a single law you passed to address the problem,” he said.