A group of demonstrators protest outside a police precinct in response to the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Jan. 29.
Photo:
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
Americans owe a debt of gratitude to the family of
Tyre Nichols,
the 29-year-old father who was beaten during an arrest by Memphis police and died three days later. The Nichols family called for protesters to avoid violence as they demanded justice in the case, and for the most part that is what happened over the weekend after the police video of the arrest was released Friday evening.
The bodycam video is infuriating and will be part of the evidence against the five officers charged with second-degree murder, among other offenses. Nichols appeared to be defenseless as he was repeatedly kicked and hit. The officers were dismissed from the force, and the district attorney brought the charges before the video was publicly released. Whatever justice is meted out won’t make up for the loss of an apparently innocent young man’s life, but the cops are being held accountable.
The case will bring back the issue of police training and how extensive such abuse is. The officers were part of a special unit called Scorpion formed in 2021 to reduce violence in high-crime areas of a city notorious for the lack of public safety. The police disbanded the Scorpion unit this weekend, which is no doubt a response to public anger, but it won’t serve the city if this leads to a new burst of crime.
The urge to blame all police for the excesses of a few took hold after the murder of
George Floyd
in Minneapolis. Those officers were charged and found guilty of excessive use of force and murder. But the attacks on police in general led to cuts in funding and other limits on law enforcement that produced a surge in crime and homicides in many big cities.
Yet the fact that there is inadequate training and poor recruitment for police in many parts of the country is undeniable. The…
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