MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Tire Nichols’ Family and friends remembered him with songs of faith and heartfelt tributes on Wednesday, mixing a celebration of his life with angry calls for police reform following the brutal beating he suffered by hands of the Memphis police.
Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, fought back tears as she spoke lovingly of her son.
“The only thing that stopped me was that I really believed that my son was sent here because of an assignment from God. And maybe now his assignment is over. He has come home,” he said, urging Congress to pass police reform.
Rev. Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris both gave impassioned speeches calling on lawmakers to approve the George Floyd Justice on Policing Acta broad package of reforms that included a national register for police officers disciplined for misconduct, a ban on no-knock warrants and other measures.
Harris said the beating of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, by five Black police officers was a violent act that violated the police’s stated mission to ensure public safety.
“It’s not in the interest of the public to be safe, because one has to ask, isn’t it in the interest of the public to be safe that Tire Nichols is with us today? Doesn’t he also have a right to be safe? That’s why when we talk about public safety, we understand what it means in its true form. Tire Nichols should have been safe,” he said.
Nichols was beaten after police stopped him for an alleged traffic violation Jan. 7. Video released after pressure from Nichols’ family shows officers restraining him and repeatedly punching, kicking and hitting him with a baton while he screamed for his mother.
Sharpton said the officers who beat Nichols would have acted differently if there had been real accountability for their actions. He also said he believed that if Nichols had been white, “you wouldn’t have beaten him like that.”
“We understand there are concerns about public safety. We understand there are needs to deal with crime. But you don’t fight crime by becoming criminals yourself. You don’t stand up to street thugs who become thugs yourself. You don’t fight gangs by being five armed men against one unarmed man. That’s not the police. That’s punks,” he said.
Family of other Black men and women killed by police – including George FloydBreonna TaylorBotham Jean and Eric Garner – also attended the funeral and Nichols’ mother called on officials to prevent more tragedies.
“We have to act because no other child has to suffer like my son – and all the other parents here who have lost their children – we have to pass that bill,” said Wells. “Because otherwise, that blood – the next child that dies, that blood will be on their hands.”
Tiffany Rachal, the mother of Jalen Randle, who was shot dead by a Houston police officer in 2022, sang a rendition of the classic gospel standard “Total Praise” to rapturous applause from the congregation and Nichols’ family.
“All the mothers around the world must unite, must unite to stop all this,” said Rachal.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, discussed the graphic video showing officers punching, kicking and beating Nichols, even after he lay helpless on the ground.
“Why didn’t they see the people of Tyre?” he asked.
Tyre’s sister, Keyana Dixon, said she felt pain like she had never experienced before “when the monsters killed my baby brother.” LaToya Yizar, whose mother is Nichols’ godmother, read from a poem she wrote titled, “I’m Just Trying to Get Home,” which echoed Nichols’ words to the officers.
Sharpton said he took his daughter Ashley early Wednesday to the site of the former Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr. was shot on April 4, 1968. He noted that King was in Memphis to support a strike by the city’s sanitation workers, most of whom were Black.
“The reason why … what happened in Tire is very personal for me, is that five Black men who don’t work in the police department, it’s unthinkable to be in an elite squad, in the city that died Dr. King, not far from the balcony, you beat a brother to death,” Sharpton said.
Nichols, a skateboarder and amateur photographer who worked making boxes for FedEx, grew up in Sacramento, California, and loved the San Francisco 49ers. He arrived in Memphis before the coronavirus pandemic and got stuck. But he was fine with it because he was with his mother, and they were very close, he said. He even had his name tattooed on his arm.
Nichols made friends during morning visits to Starbucks and always greeted her mother and stepfather when she came home with a sunny, “Hello, parents!” The baby of their family, Nichols has a 4-year-old son and works hard to improve himself as a father, his family said.
In the three weeks since Nichols’ death, five police officers have been fired and charged with murder. Their special unit was disbanded. Two other officers were suspended. Two Memphis Fire Department emergency medical workers and a lieutenant were also fired. And more discipline may come.
Attorneys for two of the charged officers, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., have pleaded not guilty. Blake Ballin, Mills’ attorney, told the AP that the videos “raise a lot of questions with answers.”
Attorneys for the other three officers did not comment to the AP.
Nichols’ death is the latest in a series of early police accounts of their use of force that were later shown to downplay or ignore violent encounters.
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AP reporters Travis Loller and Jonathan Mattise contributed from Nashville, Tenn.
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For more coverage of the Tire Nichols case, go to https://apnews.com/hub/tyre-nichols.
