A lot of lives are going to be changed as a result of a life being lost as a result of a deadly beating by a handful of police officers in the Memphis area. A lot happened that night that Tyre Nichols ran from the cops. The scene here is far from unbelievable. In truth it feels expected. It reflects everything we see and have come to expect from TV shows about cops . The cops were punching him for running. They weren’t trying to put him into custody, they were treating him the way you treat a member of a rival gang when you finally catch them–you punish them for making you chase them.
It is wrong. It is someone in power feeling that power and losing all sense of humanity while they beat a restrained man senseless. What’s worse is they know the script for self-defense. They are talking about the things they are acting like he did to put them in harm, however it is clear that this was not the case at any point, and they were simply hyped up after the chase and beat a man to death like a pack of animals who’ve caught their prey.
This is bad. This is instructionally bad. This is us seeing the results of how we train our society and how we train our officers. It is entirely debatable why he was stopped and why he ran. I’ve heard things ranging from him being armed and dangerous and fleeing in commission of a crime from him not using a turn signal and the cops coming for him. I don’t know why he ran. If I had to speculate I would say he was afraid he had warrants or something of the sort. I don’t believe someone who runs from the police is entirely innocent, and I don’t believe what happened to him was in any way justified.
This is going to be a story for a long time.