Tyre Nichols funeral LIVE: Thousands, including Kamala Harris and George Floyd’s family, expected at funeral of black man, 29, beaten to death by Memphis police
Police violence victim’s mother sings at funeral
Tiffany Rachal, whose son, Jalen Randle, was killed by Houston police officers last year, sang at the funeral service on Wednesday.
Before singing Lord I Will Lift My Eyes to the Hills, Rachal said: ‘Mothers need to come together and stop all of this.’
Reverend begins ceremony by saying cops denied Tyre Nichols of his ‘rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’
Rev. Dr. J. Lawrence Turner began Tyre Nichols’ funeral on Wednesday by blasting the police officers responsible for his death.
He said Nichols, who was only 29 when he was brutally beaten, was ‘denied his rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness’ and was ‘denied [his] right to hold his son.
Turner concluded by saying the pattern of black people being killed by police officers will be ‘canceled and will not be renewed.’
‘We’re going to overcome in this struggle for justice for our brother Tyre Nichols,’ Turner said, after describing Nichols as a ‘good person, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a human being, gone too soon.’
housands of mourners have descended on a Memphis church to pay their respects to Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old unarmed black man who was brutally beaten following a traffic stop.
More than 2,000 people are expected to be in attendance for the service at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church Wednesday afternoon, which will serve as a way to remember the amateur photographer’s life while also encouraging action for systemic police change.
Four of the five officers charged in Tyre Nichols’ death were previously reprimanded
Newly-released personnel files show that four of the five Memphis cops charged in Tyre Nichols‘ death have been disciplined in the past.
The files released by the city Tuesday night detail how Officers Demetrius Haley and Emmitt Martin were both disciplined twice since 2019, while Justin Smith and Desmond Mills were disciplined once during their careers.
A fifth cop charged in Nichols’ death, Tadarrius Bean, had never been reprimanded, however.
The personnel files, obtained by WREG, detail how the four officers were previously reprimanded for a slew of violations including excessive force, failing to search suspects, failure to issue a report and failure to maintain proper control of a vehicle.
Vice President Kamala Harris is snapped on her way to the funeral
Vice President Kamala Harris was pictured waving to reporters in a long black coat and a black dress as she heads to Tyre Nichols’ funeral.
The vice president was escorted by Secret Service in an official government vehicle as she she heads to the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church.
.@VP Harris heads to Memphis to attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. pic.twitter.com/EoRzD2JP9z
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) February 1, 2023
Funeral is delayed due to inclement weather
Tyre Nichols’ funeral was delayed until 1pm local time due to inclement weather and travel delays, organizers said.
An ice storm shuttered Memphis schools on Tuesday and canceled flights to the city’s airports — including the one Ben Crump, Nichols’ family attorney, was supposed to take Tuesday evening.
Pastor says he hopes Tyre Nichols’ funeral will provide a ‘shift’ and ‘bring about a change that we’ve been waiting for in the life of our country’
The Rev. J. Lawrence Turner, who will lead the funeral of Tyre Nichols at the Mississippi Boulevard Church, said he hopes the service will bring about change.
Speaking to Axios, Lawrence said the funeral will serve as a moment of grief for the community suffering another ‘collective trauma.’
‘This is a big moment,’ he said, noting he will try to encourage mourners to channel their outrage into fighting for systemic change. ‘We’re trying to do our best to combine all of these elements so that this service has meaning and purpose.’
He then went on to say that Nichols ‘represents many of use who have hopes and aspirations and dreams.
‘Tragically, his life was taken away at the hands of those officers. However, I think he teaches us to live and fulfill a greater purpose.
‘I think in his life, and even in his death, he’s going to hopefully shift and bring about a change that we’ve been waiting for in the life of our country.’
Dan Beazley of Northville, Michigan, holds a cross outside of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church ahead of Tyre Nichols funeral in Memphis
Tyre Nichols’ death leads to renewed calls for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act
Civil rights activists have renewed their calls for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
The bill was approved by the Democrat-led House in March, but was never passed by the Senate.
It aims to end police techniques like chokeholds and carotid holds, which could be deadly.
Those practices would also be banned at the federal level, and federal funding for state and local police would be contingent on outlawing them.
It also seeks to improve police training and invest in community programs designed to improve policing and promote new policies.
Other provisions would:
- Ban no-knock warrants in federal drug cases and encourage local and state agencies to comply by tying bans to federal funding
- End qualified immunity, which protects law enforcement in most civil cases
- Prohibit racial, religious and other profiling
- Create a national police misconduct registry to prevent police officers who are fired from one agency from being hired by another
- Require local and state police to use existing federal funds for body cameras
- Limit how much military-grade equipment is awarded to state and local law enforcement agencies
Al Sharpton says he will discuss police brutality in the city where Martin Luther King Jr died in his eulogy for Tyre Nichols
Speaking to MSNBC ahead of the ceremony, Sharpton said he plans to address police brutality in the city where civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr died.
He said the ‘only comfort’ that he can afford Nichols’ family ‘is that we will stand with them and fight in the name of Tyre and others to try and change the legal and legislative structure that deals with policing in this country.’
He also noted that he and Nichols’ family are ‘united in passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act,’ saying he has been ‘talking with my colleagues and civil rights leadership as well as members of the Senate to really try and push police reform in light of this.
‘To go to Memphis and think about Martin Luther King died here on a cold balcony in April 1968, and we’re here now where five black cops beat an unarmed man to death and there’s no federal legislation that addresses this shows the shame that we have of what has happened to Tyre Nichols,’ Sharpton told Morning Joe hosts.
‘To think that Dr. King died to put blacks on the police force and they’re acting in as brutal a force as any racist police is why we’re here today, and I’m going to address that directly in the eulogy,’ he said.
Sharpton added that he thinks ‘it’s a bit fitting the first black woman vice president will be there because this building where Dr. King died will show how far we came from.
‘As Joe [Biden] was in Europe last week to show the human carnage, how low we can be, now we have to rise up together to fight this. We can’t just accept it.’
Memphis police will release the full video and audio showing the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols in the coming weeks following public backlash.
Jennifer Sink, the City of Memphis chief legal officer, announced Tuesday that the full body camera footage and audio showing the moment police rained at least nine blows down on the unarmed FedEx worker while screaming profanities.
The police department released redacted clips of the January 7 assault last week, but Sink said the city has received ‘multiple requests’ to release the entirety of the audio and video footage in the case.
She said the city is now willing to release all of the footage, but it will take several weeks before it is released as the city continues to investigate the incident.
‘This is how he should be remembered’
Friends of Tyre Nichols have released a moving video of him skateboarding as they urged the public to remember him as ‘living his best life.’
The two-minute clip, which shows Nichols performing skateboarding tricks on a bright and sunny day, has gone viral on social media as users paid tribute to the ‘beautiful’ boy.
Posting on Twitter, Mai Perkins wrote: ‘Before the Memphis Police Dept. releases the video of 5 MPD officers murdering Tyre Nichols during a routine traffic stop, and that heinous video inevitably goes viral, I want to amplify THIS video of Tyre LIVING his best life.’
She added: ‘By posting this video of Tyre Nichols practicing his craft I wanted to extend to him in death the #DIGNITY4BlackBodies that he deserved in life.
‘I knew once the body cam was released, chances of wiping those images from our psyche would be impossible.’
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Photo montage pays tribute to Tyre Nichols
The pastor took time out of Tyre Nichols funeral service on Wednesday to showcase some photos of the 29-year-old father-of-one throughout the years.
Mixed in were photos from protests held across the country in recent days, including in Boston, Houston and Los Angeles.
It started with a quote attributed to Tyre Nichols, an amateur photographer: ‘My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eyes and out through my lens.’