Al Sharpton calls police ‘gangbangers’ as Tyre Nichols family demands justice at MLK ‘mountaintop’ church

Funeral will be held in Memphis on Wednesday

In a fiery speech, civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton compared the Memphis police officers who fatally beat Tyre Nichols to a group of gang members.

“We talk a lot about the gangbangers in the street and what colours they wear,” he said during remarks on Tuesday evening. “In Memphis, they wear the blue color, in uniform.”

”Why were they in an elite force and acting like hoodlums ... killing a man,” he continued.

The Rev Al Sharpton speaks at the historic Mason Temple as he is flanked by RowVaughn Wells, right, mother of Tyre Nichols, and Tyre's stepfather Rodney Wells (AP)

Video released by Memphis police on Friday shows a group of officers punching, kicking, and tasing Nichols until he slumped motionless against a car. He died in hospital three days later, on 10 January.

The civil rights activist said he and his fellow organisers wouldn’t stop until federal action was taken to stop police violence like the kind the claimed the life of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man.

“We will continue until Tyre is able to head up to Martin’s mountaintop,” Mr Sharpton added, referring to the historic 1968 “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech Martin Luther King, Jr, gave at the Mason Temple where Rev Sharpton and the Nichols family were standing on Tuesday. “That’s why we wanted to stand this on this sacred ground.”

King was assassinated the day after his speech.

The reverend also accused officers of “talking a narrative to defend themselves while they were perpetrating the crime,” a reference to officers claiming during conversations captured on body camera footage that Nichols was on drugs or reaching for their guns.

During the speeches on Tuesday, NAACP Memphis president Van D Turner, Jr, also called on state officials to pass the recently proposed Tyre Nichols Criminal Justice Reform Bill, which would require police de-escalation, first aid, and intervention in cases of excessive force.

A funeral for Nichols will be held on Wednesday in Memphis. Vice president Kamala Harris will be in attendance.

Five former Memphis police officers, all of whom are Black, have been charged with murder in connection with the scandal.

A sixth officer, identified as Preston Hemphill, who is white, has also been suspended with pay pending a hearing, and a seventh officer who was not immediately identified was relieved of duty without pay, police have said.

Memphis police officials have admitted they have “no proof” officers had a reason to pull Nichols over in the first place.

“We’ve taken a pretty extensive look to determine, you know, what that probable cause was, and we have not been able to substantiate that,” Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said last week. “It doesn’t mean that something didn’t happen, but there’s no proof.”