Mr. Sharpton has delivered remarks on the funerals of Mr. Floyd, whose 2020 demise after an officer in Minneapolis saved his knee on the inclined man’s neck for greater than eight minutes sparked nationwide protests; Daunte Wright, who was shot by a police officer who mistook her gun for her Taser throughout a site visitors cease outdoors Minneapolis in 2021; Alton Sterling, who was shot by the police in Baton Rouge, La., in 2016; and others relationship again many years, together with the 1997 demise of William J. Whitfield, an unarmed man fatally shot on Christmas Day in Brooklyn.
Mr. Nichols died on Jan. 10, three days after a site visitors cease that changed into a brutal beating by the hands of Memphis law enforcement officials who had been a part of a specialised unit fashioned to assist halt a surge of violence within the metropolis.
In response to his demise, police officers introduced on Saturday that the unit had been disbanded. Jim Strickland, the mayor of Memphis, has additionally referred to as for an in depth evaluate of the Police Division. Two different law enforcement officials who had been on the scene have been suspended pending the outcomes of an investigation into their actions, as have two deputies from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Division. Two medics and a lieutenant from the Memphis Fireplace Division who responded to the scene have additionally been fired, officers mentioned.
Video from the officers’ physique cameras and a stationary surveillance digicam that was launched final week confirmed the assault and Mr. Nichols begging for his life. The encounter started as officers approached his car — they claimed he had been driving erratically, though town’s police chief has mentioned no proof of that has emerged — with weapons drawn and pulled him from his automobile. The officers shouted usually contradictory orders earlier than utilizing pepper spray on Mr. Nichols, who ran off.
However officers quickly caught up with Mr. Nichols and severely beat him, with one officer delivering a collection of blows to Mr. Nichols’s head whereas two different officers held his fingers behind his again.
Mr. Nichols referred to as out for his mom through the assault, which passed off not removed from her residence.
Earlier than the cease, his mom mentioned, he had been on his approach residence from Shelby Farms, a sprawling public park simply outdoors Memphis. He went there usually to {photograph} the sundown. His images might be proven through the funeral.
“We get so zeroed in on how he died, we don’t get an opportunity to acknowledge that he lived earlier than that second,” Pastor Turner mentioned.
