Across Texas, activists and community members protested after video emerged showing a brutal (and fatal) act of violence by the police against a young Black man in Memphis.
On Friday evening, the Memphis Police Department released a video that they were warning was a graphic encounter between five police officers and 29-year-old Tyre Nichols. In the video, the five officers swarm Nichols after a traffic stop and brutally beat him. He died three days later in a hospital. In the video, he can be heard crying for his mother.
The five officers have been charged with second-degree murder, and the unit that they belonged to at the Memphis PD has been disbanded. Nichols’s mother pleaded for civil protest following the release of the video. Around Texas over the weekend, protesters heeded her warning.
For many progressives, the video underscores the immediate need for police accountability and reform. The Texas Legislative Black Caucus released a statement condemning the murder of Nichols and called for actual solutions. “During the 88th legislative session, we will push to find bipartisan state solutions so that our Black communities no longer have to live in fear and endure the trauma of losing a loved one.”
And while even members of the far-right Freedom Caucus acknowledged the video, it seems unlikely they will champion legislation to meaningfully hold police accountable.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons : Becker1999
