The unanswered Tyre Nichols questions
When the Tyre Nichols beating video surfaced, I had some questions that were unanswered but important. And despite the reams that have been written in the days since, they remain unanswered but important. Here they are:
We don’t know why Nichols was stopped, nor do we know what triggered the beating and why it became so prolonged.
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.
If we’ve learned anything from previous experience with such videos, we’ve learned that they must be seen in their entirety. “Appears to be” is good enough for a blog post. But ultimately it won’t suffice, and it shouldn’t suffice in a court of law, although the court of public opinion is very very different.
These days, though, those two courts tend to merge, and public opinion all too often dictates a verdict to a jury motivated by a combination of fear, threats, and minds that are already made up before a trial begins.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no interest in exonerating the officers here if guilty of the worst. I have an interest in their conviction if guilty, and also in their conviction of the precise crimes of which they are guilty. The goal of a trial is to find out if the evidence indicates a particular offense has occurred, to a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof. I will accept a slightly lower standard in my own mind as a basis on which to declare my own opinion, but it’s not okay for a court verdict and it’s not okay to render it before I know enough of the facts. If that makes me a dull blogger, so be it.
Commenter “sdferr” linked to this article of interest to me, which begins this way:
If Ben Crump, America’s No. 1 attorney in illiteracy, gets what he wants, kiss the right to due process — or what’s left of it — goodbye. If you’re suspected of committing a crime, particularly if you’re a police officer in the line of duty, pray you don’t see his face. It will be all but a death sentence.
That’s been true for a long time, and it’s also been true that if there is a racial angle – in other words, if the alleged victim of police brutality is black – you will see Ben Crump’s face and hear his voice. He is the Adam Schiff of these incidents, often telling lie and lie about them and suffering no bad consequences as a result, lies printed dutifully as truths by the willing MSM. Just do a search for Crump’s name on this blog and I think you’ll see what I mean.
More:
Crump last week said that the Memphis Police Department’s response to the death of 29-year-old black man Tyre Nichols is “the blueprint for going forward” in matters of police confronting black suspects. By that, he apparently means firing, arresting, and prosecuting cops based on whatever half-baked narrative Crump puts out with hopes of getting a multimillion-dollar settlement with the city — all before law enforcement has had a chance to release any materials in its own defense.
Please read the whole thing. It contains, among other things, a description of what the video shows and what it doesn’t show. And it contains the author’s own questions – which should be everyone’s questions at this point, but aren’t.
If one questions an implausible assertion from Authority in an important issue, the accusation of “conspiracy theorist” will surely follow.
The wish to know more about this case will elicit the accusation of “racist”.
This incident looks much more like a gang killing of a narc than a police brutality incident.
I have no idea if the officers involved have any criminal associations, but the little information I’ve read just doesn’t make sense from police point of view.
OTOH, this could just be a senseless act of violence.
No idea as to the accuracy, but I read something that alluded to Nichols being pulled over on a traffic stop, fleeing on foot and then resisting arrest while on the ground as cops sought to restrain him. That of course doesn’t justify his treatment but if accurate, does bring to mind black comedian Chris Rock’s sketch, “How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked by Police”.
So far as I know, the video commences with Nichols being pulled out of his car, and not gently. We don’t see the initial contact; we don’t know if they asked for his license and registration, as would be standard for a traffic stop. We don’t know why there were several police cars there, boxing his car in. And until an official autopsy is released, we don’t know if he was on drugs.
I lean toward some very serious police misconduct here, but the complete story is called for.
Continuing to strike someone who is defenseless on the ground and causing fatal injuries is murder. The initial cause of the incident doesn’t change that.
In the case of George Floyd, he was just being restrained, not subject to Ground and Pound.
This case is very clear. Even without knowing what started it.
Kate on January 31, 2023 at 6:14 pm said:
So far as I know, the video commences with Nichols being pulled out of his car, and not gently. We don’t see the initial contact; we don’t know if they asked for his license and registration, as would be standard for a traffic stop. We don’t know why there were several police cars there, boxing his car in. And until an official autopsy is released, we don’t know if he was on drugs.
I lean toward some very serious police misconduct here, but the complete story is called for.
It seems to me the unknows would determine if it is murder 1 or 2. And maybe whether there was a criminal conspiracy.
If it was a legit stop and he violently resisted initially then they had cause to use force to arrest him. But the ending wasn’t justified.
Don:
You are ignoring another unknown: did he die from the beating? If not, it’s neither murder 1 nor murder 2, although it would be some sort of aggravated assault charge. We have no medical reports except that there was a beating and that there was bleeding. It’s certainly highly possible he died from the beating, but we simply don’t know.
Neo,
Yes, although the beating seems like the cause of death. People who are on the ground and subject to punching, kicking and stomping have high death rates. At least one of the cops subjected him to a soccer kick, that kind of thing causes lots of damage quickly. Kicking/stomping someone on the ground is lethal force.
The way this case has been covered by the media, even Fox, is disheartening. They play the video over and over, say the police were totally in the wrong, and that many cities were going to be subject to riots. Almost as if they wanted to see more George Floyd type riots.
IMO, the proper way to report this is to emphasize the video doesn’t tell the whole story, that the officers have been fired, arrested, and charged. Calling for calm and letting the process playout is the responsible thing to do. It’s not what they did.
Fortunately, the family asked for calm and things did not get out of hand in n Memphis. Although there was some rioting and looting in a few other cities, but nothing on the level of 2020. Of course, there may be riots coming when the weather gets warmer.
I like Anderew Branca’s take on the video. He may not be correct, but at least he’s trying to be objective and take the emotion out of it.
https://lawofselfdefense.com/legal-analysis-the-death-of-tyre-nichols-was-not-murder/
I’m trying to keep an open mind until we get much mor information.
Scott Adams remarked that it “looked personal”. Might be something to that.
There have been allegations that some of the cops were members of the Vice Lords gang, and that the beating was somehow gang-related. For example here:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1619346737080180736.html
Whether there’s any basis for this I don’t know, but the best practice is to wait till the facts come out before passing judgment.
The reporting I read mentioned reckless driving… The initial cops were very angry about spraying themselves in the face with pepper spray.
Durham, where the Memphis police chief worked in her immediate previous job, has a somewhat similar squad to patrol high crime areas. As this covers much of Durham, there were complaints even when she was still there. It seems to me that this type of special squad would have to be carefully designed and supervised to prevent overzealous officers from developing a sort of police gang mentality.
We still need information.
A car is usually boxed when it is expected that the driver will run. Once its boxed then the driver is removed from the vehicle forcibly if necessary, i.e., noncompliant. What happened here to get it to this point? We only have a third of the story so far. We need the before and the after.
Powerline blogger John Hinderaker discussed this post, calling it a balanced report. It does provide some context missing from a lot of the video news reports.
The author, David Zimmer, spent 33 years in the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/memphis-police-conduct-towards-tyre-nichols-is-deserving-of-criticism-criminal-charges-and-some-context/
Dan on February 1, 2023 at 7:22 am said:
The reporting I read mentioned reckless driving…
While working as a tech for Scripps Institute early 90s we were driving back from a work site, the guy driving was going about 80 or 85. Cop pulled him over, was really upset and yelling about the speed.