Murder and the Police
Whenever someone dies for no good reason, the media always writes or says the American community is “in shock’’ or that the world is grieving. I read earlier today that the death of Tyre Nichols has “rocked the nation.’'
I have never agreed with that. I cannot grieve for Nichols the way his family can - or his community. I can only imagine what they are going through.
But I can be disgusted with a system that is out of control. Three weeks ago, Tyre Nichols was murdered by five Memphis police officers. This is true. It’s on video.
I have not watched the body camera video that was released Friday by the Memphis police department. I will admit to not having the stomach to watch a murder take place. But I have read the accounts.
These are the facts.
On Jan. 7, Mr. Nichols was stopped in his car as he was headed home. He was pulled out of his car. He fled on foot after saying “I just want to go home.’’
Officers caught up to him and beat him with a baton, then pepper sprayed him. He screamed for his mother.
One report said the officers held Nichols up so they could beat him more.
One expert in police training said: "I have never seen an individual deliberately being propped up to be beaten.’’
After the beating, they left him handcuffed and unattended. When Memphis medics arrived they stood by, along with other officials, and did nothing for 24 minutes.
Three days later, Tyre Nichols was dead.
This story is all too familiar in America, a country flooded with high and low-profile videos of black citizens being beaten, many to the death, by the police. George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breanna Taylor in Louisville, Rodney King in Los Angeles, and the many, many others whose names have been forgotten.
“What’s going on in their minds, I have no idea,’’ said a commanding officer in the Los Angeles police department.
Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester called the actions “inhumane and inexcusable.’’ Sacramento is where Tyre Nichols grew up before moving to Memphis to live with his mother.
Predictably, the murder has led to protests around the country. The five officers have been arrested and charged with murder. Other accomplices have been relieved of duty.
Memphis is near Nashville, where I worked as a young police reporter in the 1980s. Anyone who works in and around the police knows about these kinds of cops. They are bad people. Back in those days, there was a code of silence that protected bad cops. They idealized it with heroic names like the blue wall of silence, the blue code, or the blue shield. It still exists today.
If there is anything that can come out of this murderous chain of events, it is this:
The police chief in Memphis is a black woman who made the decision to release the body cam footage in the interest of telling the truth.
The existence of body cam footage, while it can be manipulated, helps keep cops honest.
The police are beginning to break down the blue wall of silence.
We need a fundamental rethinking of the police. Why do they exist? What are they for? How can they exist in the future for the benefit of society? To reimagine the police, we need to go back in history and understand why they came to be in the first place. As with all things, we must understand the history and be accountable for it.
Steve Schmidt, a former campaign manager to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, writes well about the police. I’ve attached his piece about Tyre Nichols and the police here. I don’t always agree with Schmidt. But I do here. He says it better than I can.
