CNN
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Mourners, from Vice President Kamala Harris to activist Reverend Al Sharpton, celebrated the life of Tyre Nichols, who died at the hands of Memphis police on Wednesday.
“Mothers all over the world pray to God that when their baby is born, when they hold that baby, that body and that life will be safe for the rest of his life,” Harris said at a packed-out Nichols funeral. The applause of the Memphis holy land.
“And when you look at the situation, this is the family we lost through acts of violence at the hands and feet of those who were responsible for keeping our son and brother safe.”
Nicholls, a 29-year-old black man, was subdued after being stopped by Memphis police on January 7, but continued to be beaten. He died three days after him.
“The people of our country grieve with you,” Harris told the Nichols family.
Sharpton played a painfully familiar role, paying tribute to Nichols’ life and delivering an impassioned tribute that served as a clear call for justice.
Sharpton said he visited the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
“For those of us who are fighting to open a door, there is nothing more insulting and offensive than for you to walk through that door and act like the people we had to fight to get through it. You didn’t drive yourself into the police,” Sharpton said.
If Nichols had been white, Sharpton said, referring to five former officers, “You wouldn’t beat him like that.”
“It’s not like you’re a criminal and you’re fighting crime…that’s not the police. That’s the punks.”
The pastor cites King’s 1968 “Mountain Top” speech in Memphis, where he said he reached the mountaintop and saw the promised land. The former officer accused of murdering Nichols failed to live up to his legacy, he said. “He expected you to take us to the Promised Land,” said Sharpton.
Nichols’ mother, Law Vaughan Wells, remembered her son as a “beautiful person,” echoing others at a life celebration calling for passage of the George Floyd Police Act.
“Like my son and all other parents here, children who lose their children should not suffer,” she said.
Nichols’ older sister, Keyana Dixon, recalled taking care of her younger brothers.
“I didn’t care about Thailand,” she said. “He only wanted to see cartoons and big bowls of cereal. So it was very easy to watch him.”
Dixon said all she wants is “to have a baby brother back.”
Nichols’ family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said the indictment against the five former police officers who led to Nichols’ death set a precedent. was indicted on the charges.
“We can count to 20 and every time we kill one of us in a video, Tyre Nichols’ legacy is that we have equal justice swiftly,” he said. I got
That day, mourners at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church shifted focus from the heartbreaking footage of Nichols being beaten in a hospital bed before his death, with his face severely swollen and bruised, and protested across the country. caused it.
Harris joined other senior Biden administration officials, including White House Public Engagement Director Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Atlanta mayor and senior adviser to President Mitch Landrieu.
Representing other black people killed by police, Tamika Palmer – whose daughter Breonna Taylor was shot dead by police in a March 2020 raid failure in her home in Louisville, Kentucky – attended a service .
There was also Philonise Floyd, the younger brother of George Floyd. His name echoed across the country after the May 2020 death of a former Minneapolis cop kneeling on his neck and back for more than nine minutes.
Gwen Carr, son of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 after being strangled by a NYPD officer, told CNN Wednesday before attending the ceremony. only digs up old wounds.”
The service was scheduled to begin at 10:30 am local time, but was postponed due to inclement weather and travel delays. It started just after 1pm on the first day of Black History Month with African tribal drummers and gospel choirs.
Centered around Nicholls’ black coffin, covered in a white bouquet, the young man received a message from the Reverend J. Lawrence Turner, saying, “A good man, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a human being – gone too soon.” ”
Mourners watched slideshows of a smiling Nichols at various times in his life. Photo his montage began with Nichols’ words.
Tiffany Rachal, the mother of Jalen Randle, a 29-year-old black man who was killed by Houston police officers last year, said after offering condolences to her family, “Lord, I lift my eyes to the hills.” I sang.
On Tuesday, the Sharpton and Nichols families gathered at the Mason Temple Church of God headquarters in Memphis, where King Jr. delivered his famous “Mountaintop” speech the night before he was murdered.
“In the name of Tear we will continue to climb Martin’s summit,” Sharpton said from “The Holy Land,” where MLK gave a speech 55 years ago.
Sharpton reflected on the loss of his family as his son’s name was added to the vast pantheon of blacks who died after a police encounter.
“They never recover from the loss,” Sharpton said.
Before Wednesday’s service, 61-year-old Dan Beasley carried a tall wooden cross outside a Memphis church. He said he drove his 12 hours from Northville, Michigan, through an ice storm to pay homage and light.
Nichols is said to have a devoted son with his mother’s name tattooed on his arm, a loving father to a four-year-old boy, and a free spirit with a passion for skateboarding and capturing sunsets with his camera. increase.
Public outrage over the disturbing arrest video led to the firing or reprimand of other officials at the scene, including the firing of three Memphis Fire Department employees. Two sheriff’s deputies have taken leave. In addition, he has two police officers on leave.
Nichols’ funeral came less than a week after footage of the attack on him was released on Friday night. This shook a country long accustomed to videos of police brutality, especially against people of color.
The brutal attacks sparked largely peaceful protests from New York to Los Angeles, and renewed calls for police reform and scrutiny of specialized police units that target guns in high-crime areas. .
Up to 20 hours of video recording has not been released. Shelby County District Attorney Stephen Mulroy told CNN’s “Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” on Wednesday. , says Mulroy.
He did not specify what was heard in the recording, which he said contained sounds recorded after the beating took place.
He added that the release of the footage would be decided by city officials.
Prosecutors said they have asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to expedite an investigation into emergency responders other than the five already indicted to see if charges are warranted. Those people, he said, include the police who filed the papers.
According to RowVaughn Wells, Nichols was the baby in his family and the youngest of four siblings.
He moved from California to Memphis just before the Covid-19 pandemic and remained there after the mandatory lockdown caused by the health crisis.
Nichols, a regular at Starbucks in Germantown, Tennessee, befriended a group of people who put their phones on the table and mostly talked about sports, especially his beloved San Francisco 49ers.
After his visit to Starbucks, he usually took a nap before heading off to work at FedEx. During his break he came home and had dinner.
Nichols was also a regular skateboarder at Shelby Farms Park, taking memorable sunset photos, according to his mother.
In fact, for Nichols, photography became a form of self-expression that writing could never capture. Nichols wrote on his photography website that it helped him see the world “in a more creative way.”
He preferred to capture landscapes.
“I hope that one day people will see what I see, and hopefully admire my work on the basis of its quality and ideals,” he wrote.
Before moving to Memphis, Nichols lived in Sacramento, California. A friend of his recalled that “skating gave him wings”.
One of the songs played at the end of the service on Wednesday was a gospel version of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
