The system is 'murdering us' - Memphis residents protest killing of Tyre Nichols

Nichols repeatedly cried, "Mom! Mom!” as the five Memphis police officers now charged with his murder pummeled him with kicks, punches and baton blows, a video released by the city on Friday (January 27) showed.

Protesters chanted, "Whose streets? Our streets!", “Say his name! Tyre Nichols”, and, at one point, surrounded and catcalled a police car that was monitoring the march.

Nineteen-year-old Memphis resident Trinity Williams said abuses by police made her feel unsafe in her own city.

“It's supposed to be a system that protects us, that provides safety for us. But instead, it's killing us, murdering us, innocent lives who just began their adulthood. So this isn’t fair,” she said. “I go around Memphis, scared, every single night, and I shouldn't be scared.”

Protesters also hailed as a small victory the disbanding announced by the police department on Saturday of the SCORPION unit, the specialized police unit that included at least some of the Memphis officers involved in the fatal beating of Nichols.

But protest organizer Amber Sherman said that is only a first step and other, similar specialized units also need to be eliminated.

“Just by ending that unit, that's a good move. But then you still have these same task forces that are doing that same terrorism, assaulting people, over criminalizing… the poor and low-income neighbourhoods,” she said.

The video from police body-worn cameras and a camera mounted on a utility pole were posted online a day after the officers were charged with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression in Nichols' death.

The officers, all Black, were dismissed from the police department last week. Nichols, 29, was hospitalized and died of his injuries three days after the confrontation in the city where he lived with his mother and stepfather and worked at FedEx.

Towanna Murphy said Tyre Nichols’ killing has resonated with her because she has a son around the same age.

“It’s hard because I have a 29-year-old and to hear a 29-year-old call for his mama. That changes the whole narrative. He didn't do anything,” she said, holding back tears.

The four video clips released on Friday chronicle an aggressive escalation of violence directed at a motorist who police had initially said they pulled over for reckless driving. The police chief has since said the cause for the stop has not been substantiated.

The beatings appeared to continue far beyond a point where Nichols could pose any threat to police. At one stage, two officers hold him upright as another punches him repeatedly in the face, while other officers on the scene stand by without intervening.

The ordeal captured in the video has transformed Nichols, the father of a 4-year-old, into the latest face of a US racial justice movement galvanized by the 2020 killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Nichols' death marked the latest high-profile instance of police officers accused of using excessive force in the deaths of Black people and other minorities in recent years.

President Joe Biden said he was "outraged" and "deeply pained" after watching the video.

Nichols' family and Biden appealed for calm in Memphis, a city of 628,000 where nearly 65% of residents are Black.

Protests under the banner of the "Black Lives Matter" movement against racial injustice erupted globally following the May 2020 murder of Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Reuters