The Jan. 27 release of the videos of the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols 20 days earlier at the hands of five Memphis police officers has been met with strident and emotional condemnation from politicians across the ideological spectrum.
Savage Beating, Arrests, and Indictments
Tyre Nichols, 29, a FedEx worker and the father of a 4-year-old son, was pulled over at 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 7 for alleged reckless driving. When police approached the vehicle, Nichols attempted to run but was apprehended and subjected to what has been almost universally regarded as a savage beating.Nichols died three days after the assault.
Nichols was black, as are the five police officers.
On Jan. 26, a grand jury indicted the five officers—Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith—who were charged with second-degree murder and kidnapping, as well as official misconduct and official oppression.
Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison.
The officers had been fired the previous week.
Addressing the media after the grand jury indictment, Steven. J. Mulroy, the district attorney for Memphis, said, “While each of the five individuals played a different role in the incident in question, the actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols, and they are all responsible.”
Perhaps a Chance for a Renewal of Negotiations on Police Reform
Nichols’s death may inspire Democrats and Republicans in Congress to return to the negotiating table in a quest to achieve bipartisan police reform.For months in 2021, Democrats and Republicans engaged in discussions aimed at passing police reform legislation on which both sides could agree. Those talks fell apart in September 2021.
A key obstacle in the two sides reaching an agreement was the matter of qualified immunity for police officers.
Created by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967, qualified immunity is a legal principle that shields government actors from liability for misconduct in civil suits, even when that action is illegal.
Democrats wanted qualified immunity gone, and Republicans wanted qualified immunity to remain.
Booker and Scott put out statements on the death of Nichols.
“In the coming days as this new Congress is beginning, I will be renewing my legislative efforts to advance the reform we need and that Americans are demanding.”
Scott also responded to the death of Nichols.
Continued Fallout
In response to the Nichols incident, Memphis police have disbanded the department’s SCORPION Unit—an acronym for Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods—which was the squad in which the five officers worked.A sixth Memphis police officer has been suspended, although this action, as detailed in the department’s policies, doesn’t necessarily mean the officer has done wrong and may be part of an investigation to “prove or disprove an allegation.”
Two members of the Memphis Fire Department, who were on the scene to give aid to Nichols, have been suspended.
Two deputies from the Shelby County, Tennessee, sheriff’s department, who arrived after the beating, have also been pulled from duty.