A long passage à tabac nocturne, à cups de poing, de pied, de matraque: les Américains ont découvert ce vendredi soir avec effroi la vidéo extremely shocking de l’arrestation fatale de Tire Nichols, un Afro-Américain mort à l’âge de 29 years.
The images show the violence inflicted for long moments by the five black policemen, after a banal traffic control in Memphis, in the State of Tennessee, on January 7.
Tire Nichols, tear gassed and tasered, attempts to flee but is then caught by officers, who escape and slam him to the ground, seemingly impervious to the motorist’s pleas.
one hour of video
Throughout more than an hour of video, three minutes captured by a camera located at the top concentrate the numerous punches, kicks and batons delivered by a group of agents against this 29-year-old man on a corner of the sidewalk, in the halo of flashing police lights.
The first images, captured by police pedestrian cameras, show them driving, chasing a car.
As it pulls up, the cops, all African-American, run in yelling, “Get out of this car! Get out of this fucking car.” Tire Nichols doesn’t even have time. One of the police officers tries to forcefully remove him from the vehicle.
We then hear the young man trying to calm things down: “I didn’t do anything”, “I just want to go home!” The policemen around them yell louder: “Lie down! Turn around!”
relentless blows
“Okay, I’m laying down.” The police keep yelling, visibly in a panic. Then he tries to break free. Sprayed with irritant gas and targeted by a taser, he nevertheless manages to escape.
The following video is terribly violent. Tire Nichols is on the ground, held down by two police officers. One of them gives him a first knee, it is the beginning of a beating in order. A third police officer approaches with baton in hand and hits the man to the ground twice.
“Mom, mom, mom!” Tire Nichols yells in one of the excerpts.
A fourth comes when his colleagues manage to straighten Tire Nichols. And he also punches, but with his fists, five times, directly in the face of the person he is supposed to challenge. The blows rain down, she remains on her feet for a moment before collapsing to the ground.
Long seconds follow or the man gesticulates on the ground before being dragged into a car where the police will try in vain to keep him seated, leaning against the door. For a brief moment, the camera pans over his face, he’s swollen and covered in blood.
Family calls for peaceful protests
“When my husband and I arrived at the hospital and I saw my son, he was already dead. They had reduced it to a pulp. He had bruises all over, his head was swollen like a watermelon,” RowVaughn Wells said tearfully. , the mother of Tire Nichols, in an interview broadcast by CNN.
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis warned that video showing the man’s arrest for a simple traffic violation was “comparable, if not worse” to that showing the violent police arrest of Rodney King in 1991. The acquittal a year after the four police officers involved sparked unprecedented riots in Los Angeles.
The authorities have been calling for calm for several days, anticipating demonstrations after the publication of a video described as “appalling” by those who saw it.
Tire Nichols’ own family has called for peaceful meetings. “Please prove, but prove for sure,” said her stepfather, Rodney Wells.
Joe Biden called the victim’s family
Reacting some thirty minutes after the explosive video was released, President Joe Biden said he was “outraged” and “deeply hurt”.
This Friday the first demonstrations took place in several cities of the country, particularly Washington and Memphis. In New York, more than 200 people marched chanting “No justice, no peace.” In Memphis, protesters marched when the video was posted, chanting: “Say his name. Pull Nichols.”
“They didn’t want to listen to us,” proclaimed the procession in this city where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.
In a sign that the case is potentially explosive, Joe Biden urged the rallies to be “peaceful” and spoke by phone in the afternoon with the mother and stepfather of Tire Nichols.
Because his death is reminiscent of that of the African-American George Floyd, killed by a police officer in May 2020. Demonstrations against racism and police violence had then set the country on fire, federated around the slogan “Black Lives Matter” (The lives of the blacks matter).
Tire Nichols, hospitalized, died three days after his arrest. The five African-American police officers, since fired, were charged with murder and jailed. Four of them were later released on bail.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said he was “appalled”, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said a federal investigation had been opened.
Source: BFM TV
