President Biden spoke with the Nichols household Friday and in a later statement mentioned he, “like so many,” was “outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video,” calling it yet one more “reminder of the profound concern and trauma, the ache, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown People expertise each single day.”
Biden urged Congress to move the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which aims to scale back police misconduct and referred to as for “a swift, full, and clear investigation.”
Chatting with reporters on the White Home grounds earlier than departing on Marine One, he added that Nichols’s dying was additionally in regards to the “picture of America,” and “has rather a lot to do with whether or not or not we’re the nation we are saying we’re.”
Vice President Harris lamented that “as soon as once more, America mourns a life brutally lower quick by the hands of these sworn to guard and serve.”
A number of Republican and Democratic politicians additionally spoke of their anger.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) tweeted that he couldn’t convey himself to look at the video however had learn descriptions, including “we’re heartsick and we ache with sorrow for Tyre’s household and family members.” Sen. Invoice Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said he was deeply disturbed by the video, whereas fellow Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) described the video as “tough to look at.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), a former police officer, said he was “devastated” and “outraged.” “As somebody who spent a long time preventing for police variety and in opposition to police abuse, I really feel betrayed,” he mentioned.
“Tyre Nichols ought to be alive immediately,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), noting in a separate statement that Nichols was a Sacramento native, whereas Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said the launched footage introduced “ache, horror, and terror.”
Activists additionally spoke out.
Lora Dene King, a daughter of Rodney King, whose 1991 beating by Los Angeles police additionally was captured on video and sparked widespread protests, urged folks to make use of their voices to push peacefully for change. King mentioned the police had behaved in a “sick” method and famous police had handled her father “the identical” method.
Martin Luther King III, the eldest son of the civil rights activist, said he was “deeply disturbed by the video,” labeling it a “horrific but perversely acquainted act dedicated by officers of the regulation.”
Advocacy teams, in the meantime, framed Nichols’s dying as indicative of wider, structural issues in policing.
Amnesty Worldwide USA said the video confirmed “really appalling, heinous, violent, and troublesome acts of inhumanity,” and referred to as on the Memphis police to not view the occasion as an remoted act of people however to “acknowledge this as a systemic difficulty.”
Human Rights Watch said: “Regardless of the worldwide rebellion in opposition to police brutality and systemic racism in 2020, spurred by the police killing of George Floyd, police killed 1,186 folks in 2022 — greater than every other yr this previous decade.”
Within the sports activities world, too, tributes and expressions of assist had been voiced.
Memphis Grizzlies basketball coach Taylor Jenkins told reporters “I cried,” after watching an interview with Nichols’s mom, RowVaughn Wells.
The NBA additionally launched a statement of assist for Nichols’s household, whereas basketball star LeBron James opted to share an upbeat montage video of Nichols, a keen skateboarder, skating fortunately.
Regulation enforcement leaders from throughout the nation, together with in Los Angeles and Chicago, have expressed disgust on the actions of the Memphis law enforcement officials, calling the violence “reprehensible,” and “horrific.”
“The disgraceful actions depicted within the launched video are an unequivocal violation of our oath to guard these we serve, and a failure of primary human decency,” Keechant L. Sewell, the New York Metropolis police commissioner, mentioned in a press release.
Eddie Garcia, the pinnacle of the Dallas Police Division, additionally condemned the actions of the previous officers, saying they don’t symbolize “the 1000’s of honorable law enforcement officials throughout this nation.”
In Memphis, Nichols’s mates and protesters chanted “Justice for Tyre!” at a skatepark on Thursday to honor the 29-year-old father of 1. On Friday, peaceable demonstrators within the metropolis shut down the bridge crossing the Mississippi River, briefly blocking visitors on Interstate 55, to demand justice for Nichols and an finish to “police terror.”
Many protesters advised The Washington Publish they might not watch the police video.
“I don’t have to look at the video to know what occurred to him,” mentioned Amber Sherman, a member of the Memphis chapter of Black Lives Matter. “I can see the image of him within the hospital and know he was brutally murdered.”
Nichols’s dying has resonated extensively each due to the brutality of the beating and the harrowing nature of the video, which exhibits him screaming for his mom, only a quick distance from house.
Nichols’s mom, nonetheless, hopes to reply her son’s pleas and told Biden her son’s dying would function a name to motion.
“My son will convey good out of all of this,” Wells mentioned, “as a result of he was a good looking soul.”
Robert Klemko, Emily Davies, Mark Berman, Justine McDaniel, Luis Velarde and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff contributed to this report.
Supply: www.washingtonpost.com