A Death in Memphis

This week another mother is weeping. Another child will not know his father as he grows. Another city is troubled by the actions of some members of its police force. The actions of rouge police officers taint good police officers everywhere.

In 2022, gunfire killed 64 officers according to an article in USA Today. Seventy others died from COVID and 56 others were killed in various car or truck crashes. There are far too many guns in this country and police should be concerned about guns being pulled on them in certain circumstances, but not always.

But we still need to ask questions, as statistics show that over 1000 people are killed annually by police officers from the over 18,000 police units in this country. That averages out to over three deaths a day and officials claim that not all are reported. Do we need to ask more questions? Do we need more training for law enforcement? Could they have prevented any of the deaths? Were crimes involved or were there mental health issues in play? Was de-escalation attempted in those instances?  

Law enforcement officers used to be called peace officers and were seen as “Officer Friendly” in schools or public safety classes teaching crossing at the crosswalk and other traffic rules. Now they are dealing with drugs in schools, carrying Narcan for overdoses, and hunting down ghost guns, so I know times have indeed changed. But I guess we need a balance, somehow.

This brings me back to the horrific murder in Memphis. Thankfully, there were some officer body cameras in use; other stationary cameras captured the events from overhead. Not all involved had their body cameras on.

Where do we go from here? How do we address the death of a young Black man, an employed worker, skilled photographer, father of a toddler, and skateboarder driving in his neighborhood and minding his own business? A death that was at the hands of a unit of five Black officers in a special anti-crime unit?

First, we need to realize that the initial police reports were not truthful. I did not watch the videos, not any of them, but I have read reports of the discrepancies between what the police were saying for the record; (they started the coverup even before the ambulance arrived), and the events shown by the cameras.

The cameras showed officers out of control. They demonstrated that not one police officer tried to stop these unlawful actions. Even the police chief agreed that the excuse of “reckless driving”, which was ostensibly used for the traffic stop, was untrue. The police, were at no time, in any danger from Tyre Nichols. He was polite, he complied with their instructions until they lost their self-control and started to assault him. He then tried to run toward his mother’s nearby home, but the team caught him and knocked him down. He, as the videos presented, was beaten, pepper sprayed, tasered, hit with batons multiple times, and kicked over the space of several minutes. Once he could no longer move purposefully and kept falling over, while complaining of chest pain and calling for his mother, the ambulance was called.

The photos from the hospital showed Nichols unconscious, with a battered and swollen face, and intubated to help him breathe. Physicians said his death two days later, was from internal bleeding.

The authorities fired the officers involved and later charged them all with murder. In general, the public should expect accountability; we shall see. As of now, all these special crime units known as SCORPION in the city have been disbanded.

What kind of training did these units receive? Most involved were young and had not been on the force for a long time, a contrast from what one might expect from a supposed elite force. Are special units screened for coping with extraordinary circumstances? There were several of these units in Memphis assigned to high-crime areas; officials staggered their terms of duty to give monthly breaks between assignments.

The New York Times ran an extensive investigation on Traffic Stops that led to deaths. This is an excerpt from that article:

“In case after case, officers said they had feared for their lives. And in case after case, prosecutors declared the killings of unarmed motorists legally justifiable. But The Times reviewed video and audio recordings, prosecutor statements, and court documents, finding patterns of questionable police conduct that went beyond recent high-profile deaths of unarmed drivers. Evidence often contradicted the accounts of law enforcement officers.”

As long as counties and cities get revenue from traffic tickets, there will be traffic stops, I guess. But should traffic stops lead to deaths? Some have suggested that there be specific traffic cops who write tickets and don’t carry arms or create confrontations. In a gentler world that might work. I know that in European countries, traffic stops don’t lead to deaths. I don’t have answers, but I know that too many drivers innocently running errands get killed.

As a white woman, I would expect that Black officers would be more understanding to Black residents, but commentators this week say this is untrue. Some claim that once on the force, even Black officers adopt the departmental attitude of ‘them against us’ and see the blue uniforms as their work families. Others said that Black officers are tougher on members of their community.

James Baldwin wrote an article in The Nation about a man who questioned police who were beating a bunch of kids. They then beat him so badly that he lost an eye. He discusses the issue of police brutality as he saw it in 1966, a different era, but was it?

“No, I am writing a report, which is also a plea for the recognition of our common humanity. Without this recognition, our common humanity will be proved in unutterable ways. My report is also based on what I myself know, for I was born in Harlem and raised there. Neither I, nor my family, can be said ever really to have left; we are—perhaps—no longer as totally at the mercy of the cops and the landlords as once we were. In any case, our roots, our friends, our deepest associations are there, and “there” is only about fifteen blocks away.

This means that I also know, in my own flesh, and know, which is worse, in the scars borne by many of those dearest to me, the thunder and fire of the billy club, the paralyzing shock of spittle in the face, and I know what it is to find oneself blinded, on one’s hands and knees, at the bottom of the flight of steps down which one has just been hurled. I know something else: these young men have been in jail for two years now. [he was discussing the Harlem Six- young men jailed at the time.] Even if the attempts being put forth to free them should succeed, what has happened to them in these two years? People are destroyed very easily. Where is the civilization and where, indeed, is the morality which can afford to destroy so many?”

You can read the entire article here:

Another quote dealt with Black police officers and the Black Community; I wonder if this still holds today?

“Black policemen were another matter. We used to say-if you must call a policeman-for we hardly ever did-try to make sure it is a White one. A Black policeman could completely demolish you. He knew far more about you than a white policeman could and you were without defenses before this Black brother in uniform whose entire reason for breathing seemed to be his hope to offer proof that although he was Black, he was not Black like you.”

He also said:” It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

But, if one goes back to the earlier paragraph, Baldwin discusses allowing and viewing others with basic humanity. This is what the officers denied to Tyre. They did not accept him as a person to be respected but, rather, as someone to be subjugated to the group concept of ‘one who must be controlled’. Once that mentality was in place, they seemed to no longer respect his humanity. Social scientists have said that men in groups act differently than they might act alone. So, while groups can give each other courage to act positively, groups can also act with mob-like behaviors.

Several who viewed the video mentioned above likened it to a Rodney King moment; that incident in the 90’s when Los Angeles police severely beat a Black motorist they had stopped after a chase. A civilian captured the incident on his video camera and an uproar ensued after it was shown that the white police officers needlessly beat and stunned the inebriated King. Afterward, several of the officers were tried and acquitted of using unnecessary force. Following their acquittal, Los Angeles saw severe rioting. Later on, they convicted some officers of Federal civil rights violations. Confrontations between police and Black citizens were common at that time, but many people were caught up in King’s plea, “can’t we all get along?” That incident was thirty-some years ago; have we learned anything new?

How many more moments will we have before we can stop killing people for traffic stops? No one has established a rationale for stopping Tyre on his drive; what made the unit stop him? Were they just bored? Why did these officers act this way; maybe we will never know.

Mrs. Wells, Tyre’s mother has called for peaceful demonstrations after the videos were shared and, so far, protests across the nations have been calm. She was invited to be a guest of the President at the upcoming State of The Union address. The President has called again for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which stalled in Congress previously.

This past Friday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Hitler convinced his followers that the Jewish people and others he imprisoned and killed were not worthy of life or the same privileges as his ‘pure or Aryan Germans’; in short, he denied any common humanity with them. Until we can all see each other with a sense of brotherhood, sisterhood, and common bonds of humanity, we will fail as a nation and a world.

“Til next week, Peace and compassion to all.