Biden ‘outraged’ and ‘pained’ after watching Memphis police video

AFP

President Joe Biden mentioned he was “outraged” and “deeply pained” after watching a violent encounter between Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, and the 5 cops charged with homicide in his beating dying after a site visitors cease earlier this month.

“Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death,” Biden mentioned in an announcement.

He added the Nichols’ households deserves a swift, full and clear investigation.

Tyre Nichols repeatedly cried, “Mom! Mom!” because the 5 Memphis cops now charged with the Black motorist’s homicide pummeled him with kicks, punches and baton blows after a Jan. 7 site visitors cease, video launched by town on Friday confirmed.

The video from police body-worn cameras and a digicam mounted on a utility pole had been posted on-line a day after the officers had been charged with second-degree homicide, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression in Nichols’ dying.

The officers, all Black, had been dismissed from the police division final week. Nichols, 29, was hospitalized and died of his accidents three days after the confrontation within the metropolis the place he lived together with his mom and stepfather and labored at FedEx.

The 4 video clips chronicle an aggressive escalation of violence directed at a motorist who police had initially mentioned they pulled over for reckless driving. The police chief has since mentioned the trigger for the cease has not been substantiated.

The beatings appeared to proceed far past a degree the place Nichols might pose any risk to police. At one stage, two officers maintain him upright as one other punches him repeatedly within the face, whereas different officers on the scene stand by with out intervening.

The ordeal captured within the video has reworked Nichols, the daddy of a 4-year-old, into the newest face of a U.S. racial justice motion galvanized by the 2020 killing of George Floyd by the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Nichols has been described by family and friends as an affable, achieved skateboarder who not too long ago enrolled in a pictures class. Raised in Sacramento, California, he moved to the Memphis space earlier than the coronavirus pandemic.

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner mentioned after seeing the video he had “concerns about two deputies who appeared on the scene” following Nichols’ arrest. Those deputies have been relieved of obligation pending the result of an inner investigation, he mentioned on Twitter.

After the video’s launch Friday night, a number of dozen demonstrators in Memphis marched alongside Interstate 55, shutting down site visitors close to a bridge that crosses the Mississippi River into Arkansas.

Three folks had been arrested for damaging a police car throughout protests in Times Square, a spokesperson for the New York City Police Department mentioned. Demonstrations appeared largely peaceable in different cities, together with Atlanta, Washington and Sacramento.

The first video launched on Friday exhibits officers dragging Nichols from the driving force’s seat of his automotive stopped at an intersection as he yells, “I didn’t do anything … I am just trying to go home.” Officers power him to the bottom as they order him to lie on his abdomen and squirt him within the face with pepper spray.

Nichols breaks free and sprints away down a street with officers chasing him on foot. At least one fires a stun gun at him.

Other footage exhibits a subsequent wrestle after officers meet up with Nichols once more in a close-by neighborhood. Two officers are seen holding him down as a 3rd kicks him and a fourth delivers blows with what seems to be a baton earlier than one other punches Nichols.

Nichols is heard repeatedly screaming, “Mom! Mom!” as he struggles with officers. His mom has mentioned her son was solely about 80 yards (meters) from house when he was overwhelmed.

A stretcher is seen arriving 19 minutes after the primary emergency medical personnel get to the scene.