US President Joe Biden expressed outrage and said he was “deeply hurt” when he saw the recordings that recorded aggression against Tire Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, in a police approach. Nichols died on January 10, three days after the action, which had images released on Friday night (27).
The Democrat described the police officers’ conduct as outrageous. “Like many, I was outraged and deeply saddened to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in the death of Nichols,” said Biden, in a statement, in which he again demanded Congress pass the law named after George Floyd, which provides a series of police reforms and stalled in the Senate.
According to the president, the Nichols family deserves that the case be investigated thoroughly and transparently.
The images released this Friday were recorded by surveillance cameras on the streets of Memphis, in the state of Tennessee, and by a body camera attached to the uniform of an agent involved in the action.
They show that Nichols was initially approached inside his car. An agent pulls him out of the vehicle, while the man says he just wanted to go home and didn’t do anything. After being thrown to the ground, he manages to break free and run away. A police officer appears to fail to use a stun gun to prevent escape.
Another video, from a security camera, shows Nichols surrounded by agents, apparently at the moment he was recaptured. At that moment, the strongest attacks occur, with the man apparently resisting being handcuffed. One agent punches Nichols in the face at least five times, while another holds his hands from behind; in another moment, the man is hit by two kicks in the head. The agents also used pepper spray and batons for the attacks.
According to the CNN network, there were at least nine attacks in a period of four minutes. The videos also show Nichols screaming for his mother while he is immobilized on the ground – her house would be about 100 meters from where it all happened.
The five police officers involved in the case were formally charged with murder this Thursday (26). The scenes do not allow us to know details of why Nichols was stopped by the agents, but their disclosure triggered protests in different US cities, including Memphis and New York itself – the authorities previously showed some degree of concern about these acts, calling for calm.
The official autopsy of the case has not yet been completed, but lawyers for the family said in an interview with CNN that a medical examination found that Nichols was severely beaten. “No mother should go through what I’m going through now — losing her child the violent way I lost mine,” RowVaughn Wells told a news conference on Friday.
The five officers were identified as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emitt Martin 3rd, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith. Their ages range from 24 to 32, and their lengths of service in Memphis range from two and a half to five years. They were part of a specialized unit that patrolled high-crime areas of the city, the second largest in the state of Tennessee — and where more than 60% of the 630,000 residents are black.
In addition to the murder charges, the five will be charged with aggravated assault and kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
All were fired on Saturday (21), after an internal investigation at the department concluded that they violated protocols, used excessive force, failed to approach and did not provide help. They were also detained on Thursday morning, but, according to the American newspaper The New York Times, they were released this Friday (27) after paying bail ranging from US$ 250,000 (R$ 1.3 million) to US$ $350,000 (R$1.8 million).
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