Tyre Nichols: Another unarmed Black man has been killed by police and his mother wants answers

‘Our son ran because he was scared for his life,’ says Rodney Wells. ‘And when you see the video, you’ll see why he was scared for his life’

RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tyre Nichols, calls out her son’s name as she is comforted by his stepfather Rodney Wells, at a news conference in Memphis, Tennessee (AP)

“What we can tell you about the video – it is appalling, it is deplorable, it is heinous, it is violent, it is very troublesome on every level.”

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump insisted the entire nation would soon get to see for itself the video footage of the arrest that led to the death – a few days later – of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols following a traffic stop.

For now, we have been left with those words, and with another powerful, jolting connection: the footage reminded Crump of the video of the notorious 1991 police beating of Rodney King.

As Crump pointed out, King did survive his beating, at the hands of white police officers in Los Angeles three decades ago.

Nichols, allegedly assaulted by up to five Black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was shocked, pepper-sprayed, and treated like “a human pinata”, did not. After days and days of public pressure, the officers were charged with second-degree murder.

There is so much that is uniquely appalling about the death of the young father after the traffic stop on 7 January a few hundred metres from his home.

One thing is that yet another child has been left without a father.

And just as the last desperate words of both Eric Garner, killed by police in New York City, and George Floyd, murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, were “I can’t breathe”, Nichols’s equally helpless confusion was captured in his: “What did I do wrong?”

Yet as Crump and his fellow attorney, Antonio Romanucci, underscored, as they and the family of the young man spoke to the media in Tennessee on Monday, what is equally awful is how so many of these police killings echo one another.

They are the same but different, and yet they keep happening.

“You have to ask yourself, yet again, we’re seeing evidence of what happens to Black and brown people from simple traffic stops. Simple traffic stops. You should not be killed because of a civil traffic stop,” said Crump.

“And we have to say to America: how you would treat our white brothers and sisters when you have a traffic stop with them, we have to treat Black and brown citizens the same way.”

Crump said the Memphis police chief, Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, a Black woman and mother, had spoken to Nichols’s family, and had been very emotional when she did so.

“She said she was not proud of what we were about to see,” said Crump.

He added that the family would press for justice, and that they had the backing of the community.

Crump appears to be a well-meaning, dedicated man who has drawn national attention to many killings and crimes that otherwise might not have secured the focus of the media. A 29-year-old father died after a traffic stop. The family lawyer says the footage “reminded us of Rodney King”.

Yet he must surely know that his presence at press conferences such as that on Monday has also become part of the ritual and furniture of these horrific events. It is America’s tragedy that people such as Crump are required so frequently.

Nichols’s family described the FedEx worker and father of a four-year-old boy as a “good kid who loved skateboarding and photography”.

Crump said he had been asked what he thought about the fact that five Black police officers were allegedly involved.

“What I have come to learn from doing this civil rights work against excessive-force policing is that it is not the race of the police officer that is a determinable factor of the amount of excessive force that will be exerted: it is the race of the citizen,” he said.

Nichols’s stepfather Rodney Wells, who said the family wanted the officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr, and Justin Smith – charged with first-degree murder, told reporters that his stepson had good reason to run from the officers.

“Our son ran because he was scared for his life,” Rodney Wells said. “And when you see the video, you’ll see why he was scared for his life.”

When the young man’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, spoke, she said she swung from being overcome with grief to bewilderment.

“It’s just so hard to even fathom all of this because it’s not even real to me right now. I don’t have any feelings right now ... All I know is my son Tyre is not here with me any more. He will never walk through that door again,” she said.

The family had been told his last words were to ask for his mother.

She added: “I just don’t understand why we have to have all this violence and everybody killing each other. I mean, what happened to this world.”