(Memphis) The shocking images of the fatal arrest of a young African-American by five black police officers have aroused horror and misunderstanding in the United States, without yet causing the social explosion similar to that of the dreaded summer of 2020 by the authorities.
Since Tire Nichols, 29, died in early January, his family have repeatedly called for calm. And ahead of the early Friday evening release of the video, which was picked up live and uncut by major television stations, President Joe Biden called out his mother and stepfather and urged peaceful protests.
Rallies ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred people were held Friday evening in several cities, including Memphis, New York and Washington, with more planned for Saturday.
PHOTO YUKI IWAMURA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A protest was staged in Times Square in New York City on Friday following the release of the videos.
Robert Jones, 26, a clerk at a store in Memphis, whose downtown area was sluggish on that cold morning, saw snippets of the video.
“It seems that it’s a new year, but things don’t change,” he said in reference to police violence.
“It’s just horrible to see five big guys beating this man up and down,” said Nancy Schulte, 69, housekeeper at a hotel in the city.
Video released by police shows an excruciating beating after a routine traffic stop on Jan. 7 in Memphis, Tennessee. With punches, kicks, truncheons, the police go after the young man, spray him with tear gas and aim at him with a Taser electric shock gun.
At no time do we see Tire Nichols retaliate. He tries to run away, is caught. ” Mom. Mom. Mom ! “, he shouts in one of the extracts.
The facts would have occurred a hundred meters from his mother’s house. And the ambulance did not arrive until after about twenty minutes.
Tire Nichols died three days later in a Memphis hospital.
Police “culture”
The five police officers were fired, charged with murder and imprisoned. Four of them were later released on bail.
PHOTO ALYSSA POINTER, REUTERS
A woman holds a sign that reads “Justice” in Memphis, the city where the fatal arrest took place.
On Friday, while saying they were horrified, the family said they were “satisfied” with the charges brought against the five police officers and praised the “speed” of the measures taken against them.
“It could have been me” instead of Tire Nichols, reacted after seeing the video Demarcus Carter, a 36-year-old African American living in Memphis, who expected the protests to be larger.
But once a trial has taken place, “if the verdict is not the right one then the demonstrations will be bigger”, he predicted.
Some questions remain unanswered after the release of the footage of the arrest.
The video, for example, does not show the beginning of the interaction between Tire Nichols and the group.
This new death after an arrest has reignited the debate on police violence in the country, where the memory of George Floyd, killed in 2020 by a white police officer, remains vivid, with the feeling that the major demonstrations that followed have nothing solved the problem.
Ben Crump, one of Tire Nichols’ family lawyers, blamed an “institutionalized police culture”.
“It doesn’t matter if the police officer is black, Hispanic or white […]. There are unwritten rules that if a person is from a certain ethnic group, then they can be treated with excessive use of force,” he told MSNBC on Saturday.
“Now we have to take this opportunity to be able to have this conversation in America and say that this is the culture that killed Tire Nichols,” he added.