Blood on Many Memphis Hands: To Be Black at a Traffic Stop
A 21st-century policing pattern has emerged from Freddie Gray in Baltimore, George Floyd in Minneapolis and now the death of a young man, Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, who ran for his life toward home.
Plainly, we see police travel in packs to minor incidents that get violent very quickly. Their prey is a Black man, almost always.
Standard practice is to press them to the ground. Packs are made worse by the militarization of police forces in soldier gear and old Pentagon hardware.
This is a national pattern of lethal violence that must be arrested.
A pack of six chased Gray one morning for nothing and he died in police custody. A pack of four choked and murdered Floyd for a $20 bill. We're told Nichols, 29, was stopped in traffic in his neighborhood for reckless driving.
For that, five Black Memphis police officers joined in a gruesome beating that became a bloody murder. Each was arrested for murder.
When Nichols lay near dying, the pack breathed heavy, so hard had they exerted themselves in chasing, punching and pepper spraying him, swearing in hateful shouts. Nobody rendered aid when he was in agony for near half an hour.
Can you imagine how heartbreaking it is that Nichols called out for his mother that night? He was close to home, but not close enough for her to hear.
Those officers belonged to the so-called elite Scorpion unit. Very nice. Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis launched that aggressive band of brothers, right away when she took charge last year.
I found the chief's performance on-camera to be just that. She washed her hands of Nichols' blood and spoke sweetly of a "lack of humanity" -- and of course, "the community."
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