There is no other word but heartbreaking. As Memphis police prepare to release bodycam footage tonight of five officers fatally beating Tyre Nichols, people all over the country are bracing for the reckoning that comes with yet another Black life being senselessly taken at the hands of law enforcement.
Nichols, 29, died in the hospital three days after a Jan. 7 traffic stop by Memphis police. While an official cause of death has not been released as of Jan. 27, a forensic pathologist hired by the Nichols family determined Nichols “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” family attorneys Benjamin Crump and Antonio Romanucci said, as NBC News reported. Following an administrative investigation, the five officers involved in the killing, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith, were all fired for violating the department’s policy on use of force and subsequently charged with murder.
