What his death says about race
In the long streak of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of American police, Tire Nichols’ death in Memphis shared many of the same characteristics: a traffic stop that turns violent, an outraged community and critical airing of footage video .
But the case was unique in another way. The five police officers now charged with his murder are black.
It remains to be seen how the officers’ race will influence protesters in the streets – and any future jury in the courtroom. But experts, activists and lawyers told USA TODAY that the race of the officers involved is much less important than the race of the victim. They say a “historically biased police culture” puts black people at risk, regardless of an officer’s race.
“Black people and black police officers may carry with them some of the same understandings or opinions of black people as white police officers do,” said Ralph Richard Banks, law professor and faculty director at the Stanford Center for Racial Justice. “There is nothing that immunizes them.”
What the video shows:Memphis police violently beat Tire Nichols during the traffic stop that led to his death
“Appalling” images of the arrest:Tire Nichols’ family and attorney Ben Crump speak after seeing video
Nichols’ death exploded into national headlines even before Friday night when Memphis police released the Jan. 7 graphic video footage. It shows officers attempting to stop Nichols at a red light, then again after a chase through a nearby neighborhood. In total, officers hit Nichols with pepper spray, a Taser, a baton, and punches and kicks. Nichols yells at his mother as officers punch him. They then support him as he repeatedly collapses to the ground.
Nichols was hospitalized in critical condition, police said, and died three days later. Preliminary results from an independent autopsy showed that Nichols “suffered from profuse bleeding caused by a severe beating,” Nichols’ family attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said in a joint statement.
The five officers were fired last week and have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes related to Nichols’ death.
‘The race of the suspect matters most’, Tire Nichols cops are black
Black police officers have been accused of brutalizing and killing black victims in the past. Three of the six Baltimore police officers charged in the 2015 arrest and death of 25-year-old Freddy Gray were black.
Gray’s death sparked days of rioting and looting and led to investigations by the US Department of Justice. The six officers involved in this case were acquitted or their charges were eventually dropped.
“If you go into neighborhoods in Baltimore right now and ask if the race of corrupt or untoward cops matters, they absolutely wouldn’t answer,” said Malcom Ruff, litigation attorney at Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, the law firm. of Baltimore who represented Gray’s family in civil suits.
“Absolutely, it’s the race of the suspect that matters the most,” he said. “It was the historically biased police culture that killed [Nichols].”
One notable difference, Ruff said, was how quickly the five officers involved in Nichols’ arrest were fired and charged with serious crimes, while white officers in previous police-involved shootings may have been suspended. with balance pending investigations.
“There always seems to be quick action when the officers are black,” he said. “It’s very revealing.”
Memphis police chief downplayed the role of race
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis called the officers’ actions “incomprehensible” and “unconscionable” but downplayed the role race played in the incident, given that the five officers were black.
“It takes off the table that issues and problems in law enforcement [are] about race,” she told CNN. “It’s not. It is about human dignity and integrity, responsibility and duty to protect our community. And as this video will show you, no matter who wears the uniform, we all have the same responsibility. So that removes race from the table. But it tells me that bias could also be a factor in how we engage the community.”
Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, called Davis’ comments “deeply unfortunate.” He said the Nichols incident points to systemic racial biases inherent in policing networks that must be rooted out, regardless of the color of the officers.
“What this illustrates is that we have a deeper issue that goes beyond black and white and is about blue,” he said. “It’s about the nature and infrastructure of policing in this country that every day sends a message.”
More black officers alone cannot solve systemic racism, activists say
Even as police departments have diversified and added more black officers, they have failed to implement and enforce the structural changes needed to eliminate racist police departments, Robinson said.
One of the issues that should be thoroughly investigated is the specialized unit to which some of the Memphis police officers belonged – the so-called SCORPION team – which may have acted with little oversight and targeted the communities of color, said Hans Menos of the California- Center for Policing Equity. (That unit has been deactivated, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said Friday.)
“We don’t need to know the race of the officers to know that we have five unsupervised officers in a community being asked to do business,” he said. “That’s what’s slowly coming out here.”
Joanna Schwartz, a UCLA law school professor and author of the forthcoming book ‘Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable,’ said the involvement of black officers takes race out of the equation and overlooks disparities about the victims of police brutality.
“Study after study has found that black people are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be searched, more likely to be assaulted, more likely to be killed. It’s not about race because the officers are black,” she said. “There’s nothing in our country that’s separate from issues of race. Neither does that.”
Follow Jervis and Guynn on Twitter: @MrRJervis, @jguynn.
USA Today
