What on earth was going on with the beating of Tyre Nichols?
Very hard to say, because there’s a lot of missing information. But here’s something about it, as well as this.
My reflections so far:
(1) We don’t know why Nichols was stopped, nor do we know what triggered the beating and why it became so prolonged.
(2) We don’t know his cause of death, although I would assume it’s likely it was the beating, which appears to be vicious and prolonged.
(3) The police involved were charged very very quickly.
(4) Every single person involved in this incident was black, but that doesn’t stop “racism” from being proposed as the cause.
(5) The officers were part of a special unit described here:
SCORPION, also called a “saturation unit,” was created in 2021 to combat car theft and gang violence by saturating high-crime neighborhoods with police presence, according to the agency…
Philip Stinson, criminal justice professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said the purpose of saturation units is often to make police presence known and intimidate residents by “swarming into an area, being visible and taking quick action to make many arrests.”
But Stinson said these specialized units are “troubling in many ways” because they may “have a lot of aspects of street justice, a lot of aspects of uncontrolled policing.”
There is a lot about this event that doesn’t smell right. Actions on both sides are questionable. Ben Crump getting involved is not a good sign.
SCOTTtheBADGER:
Crump always gets involved. Always.
There is money in fomenting hate.
What did Tyre do or not do that so enraged the police? Will we ever know?
So many simple traffic stops end badly.
I had a conversation with my children when they began to drive. It went like this:
You’re going to be driving soon and there are some things you need to know before you start driving.
You’ll be a careful driver and I hope you will follow the traffic laws. However, even careful drivers sometimes get stopped for traffic violations.
If that happens to you there are some things you need to keep in mind.
We hire police to deal with people who break our laws. Some of those people are violent and dangerous. We train our police and arm them to deal with this kind of people, so we don’t have to. Police know from their training and police reports that traffic stops can be dangerous. Policemen are killed or injured doing traffic stops every year. The police are just like everyone – they want to come home safely after a day’s work. Their job is dangerous and demanding. You can understand why they are alert to danger during a traffic stop.
When a policeman stops you, he doesn’t know who you are. He doesn’t know if you are dangerous or not. So, he will be wary and ready for anything.
If you are stopped, pullover safely, roll down your window, and shut your engine off. Keep your hands in sight on the steering wheel. Don’t make any sudden moves.
When the policeman comes up, be calm and be polite. Follow any instructions the policeman gives you. Don’t dispute the policeman’s word. If the policeman tells you, “You are under arrest,” don’t resist. Resisting arrest is a crime. Our police are trained to use whatever force is necessary to effect an arrest. If you resist, you could be injured or even killed. Unfortunately, it happens all too often.
Any issues or disputes you have with the policeman can be settled in a court of law or a traffic hearing. It’s much better to follow that process and settle matters without violence.
A traffic stop is not the end of the world. Stay calm, stay polite, and try to learn from the experience.
When I was in flight training at Pensacola, we all heard a version of this conversation because there were too many flight students ending up getting hurt by the local police during traffic stops. It was advice that served me well. I think it’s information that all young people of all ethnicities should hear.
What exactly is “uncontrolled policing”?
On the face of it, the murder charges appear warranted. They beat the hell out of him and left him lying in the road for quite a while before hospital transport.
How were these officers recruited? What were their backgrounds? What kind of training did they receive, and what kind of oversight? Was this “saturation” squad operating as a sort of police gang?
Kate–
FWIW, two of the five officers involved in the beatdown joined the Memphis PD in August 2020 after the department loosened its hiring requirements.
“Recruits no longer needed an associate’s degree or 54 college credit hours to join the force, and could get by with five years of work experience. . . . Loosening the required qualifications however means that the department is ultimately getting ‘less desirable’ job candidates, [said] Mike Alcazar, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a retired NYPD detective. . . . ‘They’re desperate. They want police officers,’ Alcazar said. ‘They’re going through it, they check off some boxes, saying, “Ok, they’re good enough”. . .’ The department showed signs of struggle with recruiting new police officers, offering $15,000 signing bonuses in 2021 and 2022, Fox 13 reported.”
https://nypost.com/2023/01/28/memphis-cops-in-tyre-nichols-murder-hired-after-pd-relaxed-job-standards/
The Memphis PD is currently short about 500 officers.
JJ —
Evergreen: Chris Rock’s “How not to get your ass kicked by the police”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8
The beating was so over the top that it seems more like personal rage than police brutality. Perhaps one of the murderers had a grudge and his pals joined in.
My wild speculation:
These cops are corrupt drug dealers. They got screwed by a drug dealer. Intended to beat a lesson into him. Thought they had pulled the drug dealer out of his car. Turned out it was not the drub dealer, instead it was Tyre Nichols. Cops took their frustration out on Nichols.
More has to come out to understand the situation. Memphis is something like 75% black, demographically. It’s leadership reflects this from top to bottom, so it’s puzzling why ‘racism’ has been given top billing, and why it stays there when it’s so easily refuted by the overwhelming facts of the matter. Of course, it’s the professional grievance culture, and its arrangement for free advertising with the Legacy Main Stream Media that come to mind first.
It’s also unclear what the purpose of the protests might be, since the offenders have been stripped of rank, fired, and now charged and on their way to an almost certain conviction, given the video. More of the professional grievance culture, I guess. What is next, proposals for a a public lynching? Everything that can be done, has been done to expedite legal process. That’s a good thing. Now, let’s get at the rest of the story. so that we can understand the motivations. It goes without saying that with its current demographic, Memphis is a high crime-rate city.
But Stinson said these specialized units are “troubling in many ways”
So, Stinson is quoted, but no one else? We’re to swallow it whole without questions?
https://notthebee.com/article/rep-cori-bush-says-tyre-nichols-was-slaughtered-at-the-altar-of-white-supremacy
* * * * *
First they came for the Anglo-Saxon white people and we did not speak out
Because we were not systemic oppressors like those oppressing oppressors.
Then they came for the white-adjacent Asians, and we did not speak out
Because they always get better grades than we do so it serves them right.
Then they came for the Jews
Because, Jews.
Then they came for the white Hispanics, and we did not speak out
Because Spain is in Europe and that’s where the whipipo come from, so, yeah.
Then they came for the Black dudes — and there was no one left to speak for us.
* * * * *
History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it almost rhymes.
The specialized unit has been disbanded entirely.
These bogus cries of “racism,” given the video, may convince a few people of how wrong the “anti-racism” theories are — but probably not too many, alas.
Nichols family sues Memphis – huge settlement.
Crump takes his cut.
Sound familiar?
Andrew Branca, the lawyer, says the Death of Tyre Nichols was not murder!
He is going to explain the reasons why on Sunday.
Memphis chief was fired from atlanta for covering up a sex scandal there are so many murders in memphis like that young teacher killed while jogging this just stinks to high heaven
I’ll read Branca’s essay on this, when it’s published (I assume it will be at Legal Insurrection). But I expect this to be hard to convince me. I can agree that George Floyd wasn’t murdered. This one? Numerous heavy blows and kicks cause serious bodily harm, and the officers knew that.
In los angeles and new york they let the rioters run rampant
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1619558197119037440?cxt=HHwWgMDRha_m6fksAAAA
See here
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11689279/Alvin-Bragg-releases-female-Tyre-Nichols-protester-25-punched-two-NYPD-cops-Times-Square.html
Miguel:
Reasons.
And yet the doctor who tried to aid Ashli Babbitt on Jan 6, 2021 has been arrested by the Feds, see redstate.com.
Reasons.
It seems:
– Memphis got hit hard by the Covid Recession, and cut salaries and benefits 5%.
– Police officers felt underpaid
– Record high crime rates
– Tourist areas had 7X police assigned to them, leaving other areas under policed
– Memphis had a requirement officers had to live in the city.
– Department was 20% understaffed due to officers leaving
– City was unwilling to delegate some tasks to non police, to free up police resources.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/02/13/is-the-answer-to-crime-more-cops
Probably, but no proof. White officers felt discriminated against, and/ or a target on their backs (remember Officer Darren Wilson of Fergusson) and left for other departments. Any white officer that stays in a place policing a majority Black population is an idiot, due to legal risk, as well as threat of having their private, family, and professional life destroyed.
Why did this kid resist and run from a traffic stop? What was in the car? The Grievance industry doesn’t want us to know. It is much too soon to figure this case out.
He was 29, not a kid. The police chief, a black woman, arrived in Memphis about a year and a half ago, with a good reputation. She came to Memphis from Durham, NC, where crime in black neighborhoods is also bad. I agree that a full investigation is called for.
A black commentator, Gianno Caldwell, was on Fox News at midday saying that many black men have worries about police encounters, even when the officers are black, and that officers may have views about the people they encounter which make them a risk to the officers even if they are not.
I don’t see, however, how the extended and vicious beating can be justified as an effort to control a detainee.
there are indications some of the officers were from the vicelords, regardless you don’t lower hiring standards, as they did in ’18, the amusing example are the police academy, but ramparts or the miami river cops are the usual results,
Interesting rumors;
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/politics/were-the-memphis-cops-members-of-the-vice-lords-gang/106682127/
Including guy slept with an officers wife, so it was personal.
And city had a policy of hiring Black Officers.
On rumors: Wait and see.
Compared to most of you, I live in the neighborhood of Memphis (not close, but not as far), and probably hear more locally-informed talk of it. People who have lived there or still live fairly near it seem to regard it as a lost cause, a once-stately ship sunk by violence and all the pathologies associated with big cities having a large population of poor black people. A sad decline, whatever else may be said about it.
Mac, the new Memphis police chief came from Durham, NC, and around here many people think the same about Durham. And violence is rising in certain sections of Raleigh as well, and spreading.
She came from atlanta add soros da mulroy
She went from Atlanta, where she was fired in 2008, and later reinstated, to Durham, NC, where she was police chief until 2021.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerelyn_J._Davis
“community”
“inappropriate or offensive”
“some audiences”
Andrew Branca, The Law of Selfdefense, “Legal Analysis: The Death of Tyre Nichols WAS NOT MURDER!” — [Here you would normally find the url link . . . however, YouTube will not allow the posting to be linked! Go figure, eh? So good luck to you if you intend to watch the video, I guess.]
Here’s a link to Andrew’s channel entire [at least that hasn’t been pulled down, yet.]: https://m.youtube.com/@Lawofselfdefense/featured
Alternative pathway found! Scroll down to Branca’s link, be prepared to have YouTube demand you sign in to prove your age: https://mobile.twitter.com/LawSelfDefense/status/1619823895875551233
Rumble link from Branca: https://rumble.com/v27jcka-legal-analysis-the-death-of-tyre-nichols-was-not-murder.html
Two thoughts.
Alex from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ getting a beatdown from his former droogs, now coppers, ’cause they are ‘lads of job age’.
When police justice is taken from the streets then street justice will return to the street. Arrest, trial and hanging in under eight minutes.
Some folks should think long and hard about removing the police.
I am so old that my first CPR training included a massive punch to the sternum demonstrated as reaching up to the chandelier [i exaggerate for effect] and coming down on the sternum like a sledge hammer. To jump start the heart. That’s a felony now.
But be careful not to hit the bottom of the sternum or you might break (off) the xyphoid process which could puncture the liver and lead to bleeding out internally.
Which is to say…a punch can kill. And not only with that anatomical issue, but many others.
A kick, now, with a smaller impact area can penetrate more deeply.
While I wouldn’t put punching and kicking in the same deadly-force category as guns, they must be justified, as they significantly increase the risk.
All of those fancy moves you learn in one or another unarmed combat class presumes the other guy isn’t wired and moving.
That said, they must not be denied as a technique, only justified.
It’s Jan. 29th, in 2023.
MSNBC’s TV channel ran a discussion today, about the Tyre Nichols case, saying: “There’s a nation-wide discussion, about systematic RACISM in the police.”
Is this more of MSNBC making up excuses?
Tyre Nichols is an African-American man.
An I think- the five, police officers who [allegedly] attacked him, and [allegedly] killed him…with their attacks, are African-American people.
With all respect-
I believe in a great deal of actions can be done by people and/or the human race, but I don’t believe that African-American people are being racist to African-American people.
This story is poor reporting by the MSNBC company.
Without prejudging the case it seems a strong thread is the lowering of police hiring standards due to the anti-cop backlash incited by George Floyd’s death. All those people thought they were being *so* righteous.
“Some folks should think long and hard about removing the police.”
Indeed.
And “some folks” actually do!
(They defund the police, trash ’em, deligitimize ’em, demonize ’em, essentially drive ’em out of town…and then hire THEIR OWN private security for THEIR OWN protection.)
Wondering who such “some folks” might be…
FOAF,
The 2020 BLM riots caused a homicide spike of 30% over 2019, largest recorded in our history. And many of those black, in 2019 the black homicide rate was ~53% (blacks are 13% of the population), now their homicide rate is 60%.
BLM has killed a lot of black people. ~4k per year over 2019.
Use of lethal force is only justified to prevent great bodily harm. Kicking or stomping a grounded opponent who can’t resist is lethal force.
I don’t see how that can be anything but murder, and how it began or the motive of the police doesn’t do anything to change that. Even if they were justified in their initial use of force, it doesn’t justify continued use of force against someone who was no longer resisting.
The videos released in Memphis are rough wih poor definition that allow the viewer to see what they wanted to see.
The initial video shows the police struggling with Tyre who is clearly resistjng arrest/cuffing. In fact he flails and escapes from the officers.
The video from a traffic camera, is poorly illuminated, shows a “take down” of the still resistjng suspect, and NOT a “beat down”. “Take downs” are inherently dangerous due to the possibility of head and brain trauma. It does not appear that the police actions were out of the ordinary.
Tyre’s death was “unfortunate” but a consequence of his decision to resist arrest/cuffing. If you fight/resist, you are going to encounter lots of police. The videos from the involved officers are likely to be more revealing. “Take downs” are always dangerous due to the possibility of injury. Pilots, race car drivers and football players wear helmets for a reason.
In short, Tyre’s injury and death appears to be a consequence of his decision to fight the police. Tyre lost.
I believe- we cannot know for certain, (at least as “for certain” as a court of law allows), what crimes were done , + were not done, by these five officers- until their upcoming, fair trial has been completed.
Neo may want to bump or update this post, as the number of police officers (and three firefighter/EMTs) charged in the beating of Tyre Nichols has increased:
” . . . the Memphis Fire Department announced the dismissal of emergency medical technicians Robert Long and JaMicheal Sandridge and Lt. Michelle Whitaker. The EMTs had previously been suspended. In a statement, Fire Chief Gina Sweat said the department received a call from police to respond to a person who had been pepper-sprayed. The workers arrived as Nichols was handcuffed on the ground and slumped against a police car, according to Sweat, who said Long and Sandridge ‘failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols.’
Two Shelby County sheriff’s deputies were also relieved of duty without pay pending an administrative investigation, Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. announced Friday night. He said he had ‘concerns about two deputies who appeared on the scene following the physical confrontation between police and Tyre Nichols.'”
https://nypost.com/2023/01/31/seventh-memphis-police-officer-punished-in-tyre-nichols-death/
FWIW, one of the deputies is a white female; one of the firefighter/EMTs is a white male; and another EMT is a black female– so there’s at least some diversity in this horrible mess.
Cue the Bobby Fuller Four: ‘I fought the Law, and the Law won’
Federalist: https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/31/are-we-allowed-to-consider-law-enforcements-side-of-the-tyre-nichols-incident/
Yes, sdferr, it would be good to have all the information. And anything coming from Crump is to be treated with skepticism.