This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates…
People took to the streets across the United States Friday night after the city of Memphis, Tennessee
released videos of a January 7 traffic stop that led to five police officers being fired and charged with the murder of 29-year-old Black motorist Tyre Nichols.
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
The Memphis-based
Commercial Appealreported that protesters advocating for police reform shut down the Interstate 55 bridge that connects Tennessee and Arkansas:
As of 8:30 pm, more than 100 people remained on the Harahan Bridge with protest leaders saying they wanted to talk with
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Memphis Police Department Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis before disbanding. MPD officers closed off roads leading to the bridge―and several others downtown―but had not directly confronted protesters.Protesters started moving off of the bridge around 9:00 pm. As they marched eastbound on E.H. Crump Boulevard towards police, they locked arms and chanted “we ready, we ready, we ready for y’all.” Protestors then turned north, toward central downtown. As they passed by residences, some people came out on their balconies to cheer.
Surrounded by protestors on I-55, NBC News‘ Priscilla Thompson said that “they are chanting, they are calling the name of Tyre Nichols. They are calling for change.”
Demonstrators and the Nichols family have called for disbanding the MPD Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods (SCORPION) team that launched in 2021 and was involved in the traffic stop. The Memphis mayor said Friday afternoon that the unit has been inactive since Nichols’ January 10 death.
The footage shows that after police brutally beat Nichols—pushing him to the ground; using pepper spray; punching and kicking him; and striking him with a baton—it took 22 minutes from when officers said he was in custody for an ambulance to arrive and take him to the hospital, where he later died from cardiac arrest and kidney failure.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
In Georgia, though Republican Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this week signed an executive order enabling him to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops “as necessary” following protests in Atlanta over law enforcement killing 26-year-old forest defender Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, those who gathered after the video release Friday night “expressed outrage but did so peacefully.”
That’s according toThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which detailed that “a small but spirited crowd” of roughly 50 people formed in downtown Atlanta.
“We want to make one thing very clear, no executive order and no National Guard is going to stop the people for fighting for justice,” Zara Azad said at the corner of Marietta Street and Centennial Olympic Park Drive. “We do not fear them because we are for justice.”
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Just before the footage was released Friday, a vigil was held at “The Embrace” statue installed on Boston Common to honor Rev. Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
The Boston Globereported that Imari Paris Jeffries, executive director of King Boston, which installed the monument, highlighted that the civil rights icon was assassinated while visiting Memphis in 1968 to advocate for sanitation workers whose slogan was “Am I a man?”
“Today we are thinking about Memphis and Brother Tyre, and the slogan of today is still, ‘Am I a man?'” Jeffries said. “Seeing the humanity in each of us is the cornerstone of true change. Experiencing another heinous display reminds us that no family should feel this pain, ever. And there’s still work to do.”
“This is a problem that confronts us all,” he added. “This is a problem that we need to defeat together, as a family, as a community.”
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
“From Memphis to Chicago, these killer cops have got to go,” chanted about a dozen people who gathered near a police precinct in the Illinois city despite freezing temperatures, according toUSA TODAY. Their signs read, “Justice for Tyre Nichols” and “End police terror.”
Kamran Sidiqi, a 27-year-old who helped organize the protest—one of the multiple peaceful gatherings held throughout the city—told the newspaper that “it’s tough to imagine what justice is here because Tyre is never coming back.”
“That’s someone’s son, someone’s friend lost forever. That’s a human being’s life that is gone,” he said. “But a modicum of justice would be putting these killer cops in jail. A modicum of justice would be building a whole new system so that this can’t happen again.”
DALLAS, TEXAS
In Texas, The Dallas Morning Newsreported that Dominique Alexander, founder of the Next Generation Action Network, called Nichols’ death a “total disregard for life, for humanity.”
“The culture of policing is what is allowing these officers to feel like they can take our lives,” Alexander said. “We want peace and calm in our communities, and we will do whatever is necessary to demand justice so our children don’t have to deal with the same bullcrap we are dealing with now.”
Around two dozen people who came together outside the Dallas Police Department headquarters Friday night shouted, “No justice, no peace” and “No good cops in a racist system,” and held signs that said, “Stop the war on Black America” and “Justice for Tyre Nichols,” according to the newspaper.
Five former MPD cops, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III, and Desmond Mills Jr.—who are all Black—were charged Thursday with second-degree murder and other crimes.
After the videos were released Friday, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. announced that two deputies “who appeared on the scene following the physical confrontation between police and Tyre Nichols” have been relieved of duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
