The fact that the five Memphis former police officers accused in the beating death of Black motorist Tyre Nichols are themselves Black could actually clarify the issue of police violence, which is more complicated than just a few bigoted white cops. It highlights that policing in America is in desperate need of reform that addresses more than just the reality of systemic racism in the ranks.
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed the House in 2021 but failed in the Senate, would limit police immunity, require more stringent record-keeping, ban chokeholds and institute other reforms nationally to curb these tragedies. It’s time to revisit that legislation.
Nichols, 29, was stopped for reckless driving on Jan. 7. Several horrific videos show him on the ground even as officers yell at him to get down and spray him with pepper spray. Nichols then flees. Officers apprehended him a short time later on a street corner, where they can be seen pummeling him repeatedly with fists and a baton. He appears to offer no resistance.
He would die in a hospital three days later. The five fired officers face multiple felony charges including second-degree murder.
While the fact that all parties involved were Black is a departure from the more common white cop/Black victim dynamic in suspect deaths, the tragedy otherwise looks familiar: Police responding to what appears to be a minor provocation (or none) with overwhelming and sustained violence apparently driven by anger. A New York Times analysis of the video concluded that the officers barked 71 separate commands at Nichols during a 13-minute period, including contradictory commands and orders he couldn’t have physically followed, like telling him to get on the ground when he already was, or telling him to reposition himself when they were physically preventing him from moving. Failure to comply then became grounds for the use of more force.
As with George Floyd’s 2020 murder by Minneapolis police officers, it appears Nichols wasn’t given immediate medical attention after the encounter. Nichols, like Floyd, could be heard calling out for his mother as officers tortured him.
To assume that Nichols’ race couldn’t have been a factor in the Black officers’ brutality toward him ignores the complexities of police racism, which is as much institutional as it is personal. The conversation about police reform must focus not just on changing the attitudes of individual officers but on police culture itself. And that begins with the kinds of rules that the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would impose around the country.
It’s likely that some of the conservative resistance to police reform in the past has been grounded in the assumption that it’s just a veiled attack on white officers. If this latest tragedy helps open some eyes to the more complicated reality, it could open the door to real reform.
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