US vice president Kamala Harris has demanded a shake-up of policing in the US at the funeral of man who was beaten by officers.
Footage released showed Tyre Nichols being brutally punched, kicked and pepper sprayed by the group following a traffic stop.
Mr Nichols, 29, was black, as are the five police officers now charged with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression. He died in hospital three days after the incident on 7 January.
Harris attended the funeral in Memphis on Wednesday and told the thousands of people assembled she would push through police reform and demanded that Congress pass the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act.
She said president Joe Biden will sign it and adds that it should not be delayed, saying this is non-negotiable,
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police, US lawmakers proposed the bill that would implement a range of reforms aimed at making police departments and officers more accountable for their actions.
Harris said in her speech: “His brothers and sisters will lose the love of growing old with their baby brother.
“And when we look at the situation - this is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe.
“And when I think about the courage and the strength of this family. it demands that we speak truth, This violent act was not in pursuit of public safety. It was not in the interest of keeping public safe...
“Was Tyre Nichols not also entitled to be safe, she asks.
“So when we talk about public safety let us understand what it means.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton also gave an impassioned speech calling on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
The fatal assault has sparked nationwide peaceful protests against police violence.
Rev. Dr J Lawrence Turner, a pastor at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, began the service by saying he hoped the ceremony could offer a moment to “cry with each other” and call for “comprehensive legislative reform”.
He called Nichols "a good person, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a human being" who was gone too soon and "denied his rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, denied the dignity of his humanity, denied the right to see the sun set another day, to embrace his mother, hang out with his friends, hold his child, and the right to grow old."
"As we celebrate Tyre's life and comfort this family, we serve notice to this nation that the rerun of this episode that makes Black lives hashtags has been canceled and will not be renewed for another season," Turner said. "We have come and we shall overcome."
