Keneci Channel
Memphis Police Department released a body camera footage Friday, showing FedEx worker Tyre Nichols resisting arrest during a traffic stop earlier this month. Video footage of the Jan. 7 incident starts with the black 29-year-old dad being pulled over at a red light by officers who had guns drawn. He was apparently driving home.
Nichols claims he “didn’t do anything,” as five black officers attempt to detain him. Later, they would say the reason for the stop was the suspect driving recklessly. He resists arrest, leading to a second altercation where they kick, club and beat him.
In the video, they pull the suspect from his car and tell him to get on the ground.
“Alright, alright, alright,” Nichols says repeatedly.
“I’ll break your shit, try to fuck around,” an officer yells at him.
“You guys are really doing a lot right now. I’m just trying to go home,” Nichols says.
The 29-year-old suspect then frees himself from the officers’ grips as they pepper spray him and fire a Taser at him and takes off running down the street.
The officers give chase and one cop’s camera shows him reaching the scene as officers are wrestling Nichols on the ground on a street corner.
During the second incident which is near his home --Nichols repeatedly yells “Mom!” as officers attempt to handcuff him.
One officer walks over, winds up and kicks the suspect. Another cop appears to hit him with a baton as officers get him to his feet. He also takes multiple punches to the head, some from behind, before crumbling to his knees and then to the ground again.
The officers finally get off Nichols’ back as he lies writhing in pain on the pavement. They move him up against the side of a cop car where he can be seen slumped over and bloodied when they shine their flashlights on his face, revealing his eyes to be closed.
At one point, Nichols keels over on his side.
“Hey, sit up bro,” one officer tells him, in the footage.
Nichols remains cuffed on the ground until two responders prop him up for basic treatment. Roughly 20 minutes after he was put in handcuffs, medics arrived. He’s then loaded onto a gurney and taken away to the hospital.
Multiple officers accused Nichols of being “high” on drugs and one officer claimed he nearly reached for a gun, footage shows.
Five officers -- identified as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith -- surrendered to law enforcement on Thursday. They are charged with aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression in addition to second-degree murder.
All five officers were released from the Shelby County Jail Friday morning, after each posted between a $250,000 and $350,000 bail.
The officers were fired from their department last Friday after an internal investigation found that they used excessive force and failed in their duties to intervene and render aid.
Prior to the recording’s release, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis described the incident as “heinous, reckless and inhumane” -- and urged the community not to lash out in violence in response to the video.
The footage was made public just days after being shown privately to Nichols’ family and their legal team, who likened the man’s beating to that of Rodney King at the hands of Los Angeles police officers in 1991.
“All I heard my son say was, ‘What did I do?’ I just lost it from there,’’ Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, who said she has been unable to watch the whole video, told CNN. She said her son was “beat like a piñata.”
Relatives have accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure, but his official cause of death has yet to be released.
In Memphis and other cities, law enforcement agencies are bracing for protests and civil unrest, following news of the body camera video’s release.
The Nichols family however, has pleaded for peaceful protests, as far-left antifa and BLM extremists in Memphis, New York City, Los Angeles and other cities across the country prepare to take to the streets.
President Joe Biden joined the family in their call for peaceful protests: “Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable,” he said in a written statement.
However, left-wing rioters are already out on the streets and mainstream media outlets like CNN have been accused of shamelessly trying to racialize the incident and further stoke unrest.
CNN was thoroughly mocked online over one of their headlines which read: "The police who killed Tyre Nichols were black. But they might still have been driven by racism."