Dozens to hundreds of people gathered in a church in the American city of Memphis on Wednesday to say their last goodbyes to a black man, Tyr Nichols, who died after a violent police intervention. American Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the funeral, and among other things, she called for the reform of the police law. It was also attended by the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, black victims of police violence in the United States.
Reverend Lawrence Turner, in his opening remarks, described the late Nichols as a good person, an avid photographer and a talented skateboarder. However, since Nichols apparently died as a result of police action, he also called for social change. Vice President Harris and influential black activist Al Sharpton then called for the reform of the police law, the approval of the so-called George Floyd law.
“(Nichols’) death was not in the interest of public safety. With us today is a mother and a father grieving the death of a young man who should still be among us…as Vice President, I am asking Congress to pass police reform for George Floyd,” Harris said.
The draft of the aforementioned law was created in 2020 after the death of George Floyd, who died in a brutal police intervention; during the arrest, police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine minutes. The court found Chauvin guilty of murder in 2021. The reform envisages, for example, the creation of a national register of police offenses or the abolition of the qualified immunity of police officers, which protects them from civil lawsuits.
The White House announced today that President Joe Biden will meet with lawmakers in Congress on police law reform on Thursday.
Tire Nichols died in hospital on January 10, three days after his car was pulled over by a group of officers who said he was driving too dangerously. Footage from police and street cameras, they show how the policemen pull the driver out of the car and, within about 13 minutes, use pepper spray, a baton, a stun gun against Nichols, as well as their own fists and feet, which they also use to beat him in the head.
According to the analysis diary The New York Times reported that officers gave Nichols at least 71 commands, many of which he was unable to carry out or conflicted as multiple officers shouted them at once. One of the officers, for example, yelled obscenities at Nichols to put his hands on him. However, another policeman was holding them behind his back. Although Nichols, who briefly fled the police at one point, managed to follow their orders, the officers responded with increasing aggression, the NYT writes.
Five police officers face murder charges in the case. However, District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Tuesday that he was considering filing additional charges. President Joe Biden also commented on the case, calling the footage terrifying.
“We understand the need to fight crime. But you don’t fight crime by becoming a criminal yourself. And five armed men against one unarmed, those are not policemen, those are goons,” said the black activist Sharpton at the funeral today, who incited the participants of the funeral with his fiery speech. His anger was also directed at the fact that five policemen beat Nichols near the memorial site where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.
The families of Floyd and also the young black woman Breonna Taylor, who was shot by the police in 2020 with six shots during a failed drug raid, also sat in the church pews.
