Tyre Nichols’ mother family members urge Congress to pass police reform

MEMPHIS, Tennessee — Wednesday, Tyre Nichols’ family and friends remembered him with songs of faith and heartfelt tributes. They mixed a celebration of his life with angry calls for police reform after the brutal beating he got from Memphis police.

RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’s mother, had to fight back tears as she talked about how much she loved her son.

“The only thing that keeps me going is my firm belief that God sent my son here on a mission. I guess he’s done with his work now. She said, “He’s gone home,” and she urged Congress to pass reforms for the police.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris both gave passionate speeches urging lawmakers to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This is a broad package of reforms that includes a national registry for police officers who have been disciplined for wrongdoing, a ban on no-knock warrants, and other measures.

Harris said that the beating of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, by five Black police officers was an act of violence that went against the police’s stated goal of keeping the public safe.

“It wasn’t in the public’s best interest to keep them safe, because wouldn’t Tyre Nichols being here today be in the public’s best interest to keep them safe? Didn’t he also have the right to feel safe? So, when we talk about public safety, let’s make sure we know what it really means. She said that Tyre Nichols should have been safe.

Nichols was hit by police after they pulled him over for a traffic violation on January 7. Nichols’ family put pressure on the police to release the video, which shows them holding him down and punching, kicking, and hitting him with a baton over and over again while he screamed for his mother.

Sharpton said that the police officers who beat Nichols might have done things differently if they had to really answer for what they did. He also said that he thinks “you wouldn’t have beat him like that” if Nichols had been white.

“We know there are worries about the safety of the public. We know there are needs that have to do with crime. But you can’t stop crime by turning into one yourself. You don’t stand up to street thugs by becoming one of them. You can’t fight gangs by putting five people with guns against one person who doesn’t have any. That’s not law enforcement. He said, “Those are punks.”

At Nichols’ funeral, the families of other Black men and women killed by police, like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean, and Eric Garner, were also there. Nichols’ mother asked officials to stop more tragedies from happening.

“We need to do something because no other child should have to go through what my son and all the other parents here have gone through,” Wells said. “We need to pass that bill.” “Because if we don’t, that blood will be on their hands the next time a child dies.”

Tiffany Rachal, the mother of Jalen Randle, who was killed by a police officer in Houston in 2022, sang “Total Praise,” a classic gospel song, to loud cheers from the congregation and Nichols’ family.

“All the mothers in the world need to get together to stop this,” Rachal said.

Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer who works for Nichols’ family, talked about the graphic video showing the officers punching, kicking, and beating Nichols, even when he was on the ground and couldn’t defend himself.

He asked, “Why couldn’t they see Tyre’s humanity?”

Keyana Dixon, Tyre’s sister, said, “When those monsters killed my baby brother, I felt pain like I’d never felt before.” LaToya Yizar, whose mother was Nichols’ godmother, read Nichols’ words from a poem she wrote called “I’m Just Trying to Go Home.”

Sharpton said that he took his daughter Ashley to the place where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on April 4, 1968, early Wednesday morning. He said that King was in Memphis to back a strike by most of the city’s Black sanitation workers.

Sharpton said, “What happened to Tyre is so personal to me because five Black men who wouldn’t have had jobs in the police department and wouldn’t have been considered for an elite squad beat a brother to death in the city where Dr. King died, not far from that balcony.”

Jamal Dupree, Tyre Nichols’s brother, said, “They beat on him like he was nothing.”

Nichols grew up in Sacramento, California, and loved the San Francisco 49ers. He skateboarded and took pictures as a hobby, and he worked at FedEx making boxes. He got stuck in Memphis because he moved there right before the coronavirus pandemic. She said that he didn’t mind because he was with his mother and that they were very close. He even got a tattoo of her name on his arm.

Nichols made friends when he went to Starbucks in the morning, and when he got home, he always said, “Hello, parents!” with a smile. Nichols was the youngest in his family. He had a 4-year-old son and worked hard to improve as a parent, his family said.

Five police officers have been fired or charged with murder in the three weeks since Nichols’ death. Their special group was broken up. Two more cops have been taken off the job. Two emergency medical workers who worked for the Memphis Fire Department and a lieutenant were also fired. And there could be more rules coming.

Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr. are two of the officers who have been charged. Their lawyers have said that they will plead not guilty. The lawyer for Mills, Blake Ballin, said that the videos “raise as many questions as they answer.”

As of the time this article came out, the lawyers for the other three officers had not said anything to Roanoke Daily Magazine.

Nichols’ death was the latest in a long line of early police reports about their use of force that turned out to downplay or not mention violent situations.