Front Burner - Tyre Nichols’s death and the cycle of police violence

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

29-year-old Tyre Nichols was on his way to his mother’s house when Memphis police pulled him over. Police body cam footage and other video show officers punching, pepper-spraying, hitting him with a baton, and kicking him. He died three days later in hospital. Officials in Memphis have fired the five officers who were involved, who are all Black, and charged them with second-degree murder. They’ve also disbanded the special unit the officers were part of that had been created to bring down crime in certain neighbourhoods. Today we’ll be talking about how Americans have reacted to yet another police beating of an unarmed Black man. We’ll also talk about what needs to happen to fix the ways police treat Black Americans.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. A tragically brief sketch of Tyree Nichols' life goes like this. He was born in Sacramento, California. He moved to Memphis, Tennessee in search of a more affordable life. And this month, he died in hospital after being beaten by police. He was unarmed. There was uncertainty about why he was even pulled over in the first place.

He was 29 years old. Videos of his arrest and beating have been released, and they are reigniting the debate about police violence against Black Americans. We're going to talk about the videos today, and the details will be really hard to hear. So please take care. But first, we want to tell you a little bit more about who Tyree Nichols was. I mean, if you gave that guy a headlamp and it got too dark for him to land a trick, he would still try to do it.

Growing up, he was a dedicated skateboarder and a supportive friend. Growing up, he was a dedicated skateboarder and a supportive friend. He would set his board down, grab the camera, and he would film for hours and just wait for you to land this trick. And he would keep you in positive vibes, even if you're getting frustrated because you couldn't land it. He worked at FedEx. He has a four-year-old son. And he loved his mom. If there's one thing about Tyree Nichols that says a lot about who he was as a man,

it was the relationship he had with his mother. He has a tattoo of my name on his arm. My son loved me to death, and I loved him to death. Tyree Nichols' mother says she can't watch the videos of five police officers beating her son. But over the weekend, many people did. Sherry Nichols! Sherry Nichols! This is particularly egregious. These are police officers who have sworn to protect and serve all citizens. These police officers had total disregard, not just for the law, but for human life.

We tired of it, and we ain't gonna take it no more. They will know that we want justice. We demand justice. I don't encourage hurting people. I don't encourage burning down things. I don't encourage it. I understand the anger because I'm past angry. I'm past upset. I'm past bothered. I'm sick. My stomach hurts watching that. Here's what the footage shows. It happened a few weeks ago, January 7th. Officer stopped Tyree Nichols. Police bodycam video shows police pulling him out of his car and wrestling him to the ground. Get the fuck out the fucking car. I didn't do anything.

The officers keep screaming at Tyree to comply. Bodycam footage shows Tyree laying on the ground on his side. His hands are up and he appears to be cooperating. Get on the ground. Raise your hands. Raise them. I'm on the ground. Lay down. Lay down. Get down. operating. The officers appear to use a stun gun on him. He breaks free and starts to run.

He's running towards his mother's house. Where it rains and Ross. Taser was deployed. Suspect is running down Ross. Backup arrives. Police have Tyree Nichols once again back on the ground, about a half mile from where he was pulled over. They slap and push him, spray him with chemical spray at least twice. You about to get sprayed again. Hey. Hey, Mike. Hey, bro. Watch out. Watch out. Two officers hold him down

while a third kicks him near his face. Another officer strikes him with a baton. For several minutes, the police shove and drag him. At one point, Tyree Nichols is standing. An officer punches him several times in the head. He collapses. By now, it's 13 minutes from when he was first pulled over. Tyree Nichols is in handcuffs. The officers drag him and prop him up against a car.

They exchange fist bumps. He sits there groaning, bleeding, and repeatedly tipping over for more than 20 minutes. His mother's home is only a few doors away. Medics arrive and move slowly. They don't begin to fully assess him until about 15 minutes have passed. Finally, 54 minutes after he was first stopped by police, the paramedics load Tyree onto a stretcher and into an ambulance and take him to the hospital. Three days later, he dies from extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.

In my 36 years, I would have to say I don't think I've ever been more horrified and disgusted, sad, and to some degree confused. The city of Memphis released the footage at 6 p.m. on Friday. Officials warned the public for days about what was coming. The city has moved swiftly compared to previous police killings. In the past three weeks, all five officers involved have been fired and charged with second-degree murder. The special scorpion unit they were part of, which we'll discuss, has been disbanded. And now the video is out for the public to see. We'll talk about how it fits into the bigger debate about policing in a moment.

In this case, the police officers involved are all Black themselves. But first, we're talking to Chelsea Bailey, who is in Memphis taking in the reaction on the weekend. She's a video producer and journalist for the BBC. Chelsea, hi. Thank you so much for making the time to chat with me today. Sure. So I know that you're in Memphis right now. And what's it been like in the city this weekend? To be honest, it's kind of felt like the city's been holding its breath. I mean,

To be honest, it's kind of felt like the city's been holding its breath. I mean, there was a lot of build up to the video being released. And then once the video was released, it felt like the city kind of needed a moment to pause and just process what it showed. It's a really graphic video. It's a very brutal video. A lot of people that I spoke with said they couldn't even bring themselves to watch it. That's just kind of been reflected in the mood here. There's a lot of grief and pain that you kind of see on people's faces, but also just a determination to make sure that it doesn't happen again. You know, what kind of conversations have you been having that are really, that really stuck out to you? Yeah. After the video was released, there was a rally held at a park in Memphis that's aptly called Martyr Park. And my colleagues and I were trying to catch up with the marchers as they marched out of the park

and onto the I-55 highway to shut the highway down. No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! So it was a very small group, maybe about 100 people, but they were really passionate. They marched to the middle of this highway and they stood there for hours, largely peaceful. And so on the way there, I was power walking next to a mother and her son. And her son is 21. And he said he has a kid on the way. And he just was out here because his family has a history of protesting. His grandma protested during the Civil Rights Movement.

And I think one of the things he said that really felt powerful to me is he said, you know, I grew up in Memphis and my whole life I've wanted to be a part of the Memphis Police Department. That was something that I looked up to them. I admired them and I can't imagine doing that now. And I heard just a lot of that. The Memphis Police Department has always been rather visible. I met another woman who said she had one of those back the blue stickers on her car and she's long donated money every year to the police force, and she was just crying, and she's like, I'm going to take it off my car now.

I can't imagine continuing to do that. And so I think in times like this, we look to people to be really eloquent, but I think everyone here is still really just kind of raw and processing their grief and trying to figure out how to move forward. I literally had tears in my eyes when I first glimpsed at the balloons and the flowers and the street sign. I couldn't sleep last night. It was literally a nightmare. We got the power! People power! literally a nightmare. For this to happen here in my city, I'm obligated to come out here only because this is my heart and soul. And we don't allow things like this in Memphis.

Speaking about this police department, I understand that these officers were part of something called the Scorpion Unit, and that has since been disbanded. And can you tell me about this unit? So the Scorpion Unit, I believe, was established in 2021. In response, the police chief has said to the rise in what they called violent crime here in Memphis. And it was supposed to be a task force that was focused on disrupting violent crime, but also disrupting carjackings, robbery, and things like that. There's been some long simmering frustrations with not just this unit, but other units that are part of the organized crime umbrella and just the use of force that some police task force have allegedly used when making arrests.

I don't think this unit was unique in that. It took a while for the city to acknowledge that that was the particular unit that they had been in. Because according to some local reports, the unit had done a fairly good job of quote-unquote minimizing crime. And so at one point, it was held up as an example of how you can minimize crime in a city, and then something like this happens. Right. So I would imagine then that the people that you were talking to on the streets this weekend, the announcement that this unit is being disbanded is not enough. Yes. So I happen to be in the middle of a protest that started in front of the police headquarters when the local community protesters learned that the Scorpion unit had been disbanded.

And honestly, you would think that there would just be like an eruption of jubilee. But I think people were, I won't say stunned. They were just very committed to this idea that, you know, that's not enough, that it's great that they've been disbanded. is more about the relationship that the Memphis Police Department and police departments across the country have with the communities that they protect and serve. And so the people who were protesting, the community organizers who were present were very adamant that that's a step in the right direction. But I think that they would tell you they'd want to see deeper systemic change. You know, Chelsea, you've been so busy and we just kind of pulled you in here. And I wonder, just because you have this really important, unique perspective of being on the ground all weekend, are there any conversations, other conversations that come to your mind that you think would be pertinent for people to know about? Sure. I mean, I'm from the South myself. I'm from

North Carolina. And I think one thing that I won't have an opportunity to do and that I think media in general might be missing is just the South is a very religious place. And had I stayed a little longer this week, I think it would have been important to me to go to a church service because a lot of times when tragedies like this happen, communities turn inward. And for Black communities, that means turning to a church and trying to make sense of the senseless. And I did happen to go to a small kind of interfaith service. I believe that was on Friday. I'm sorry, my days are getting a little mixed up. But one of the people who was present reminded us that it was in the United States, it was Holocaust Remembrance Day. And she drew kind of a line between the ideas of,

you know, never forget and the Holocaust and why it's important to kind of look that horror in the eye and say, hey hey we're never going to do this again as a people and she was kind of calling on this very small congregation to do the same thing with policing and the way police interact with communities in general but most specifically communities of color because i do feel like a lot of people have just felt defeated a little bit or frustrated or she said something like you know i have faith that we can reform police but sometimes i i lose hope and i think that um that's a feeling that's probably happening in communities across the country. It feels like there's just this relentless drumbeat here of policing encounters that end in the death of unarmed Black men. And I think people are just at an impasse where they're like, where do we go from here? Because what we're doing now isn't enough.

Hey, Chelsea, thank you so much for this. Great. Yes, I'm happy to speak with you. Thank you. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

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to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. All right, so Tyree Nichols is unfortunately just one name we've learned over the decades because of police beating and even murdering unarmed Black men. To discuss why the U.S. and its cities have been unable to break out of this cycle of violence and tragedy, I'm joined now by Randolph McLaughlin. He's a professor at the Elizabeth Hobbs School of Law and co-chair of the Newman Ferreira Civil Rights Group. Randolph, thank you very much for making the time today. Thank you. So we just heard about how some people in Memphis are feeling sort of defeated right now because fatal police encounters just keep happening in the United States. As someone

who's seen so many cases of police beatings of Black men over the years, I wonder if you're feeling that same exhaustion. No, I wouldn't say I'm feeling exhaustion. Actually, I'm feeling hopeful. And that may sound strange. And here's why. I've witnessed and been involved in as an attorney with any number of police violent encounters with civilians who were unarmed or were not resisting arrest. Had the police been fired immediately or charged with crimes pretty much within days of the incident becoming publicly known? In some of the cases, it took years. In Chicago, when there was a shooting of a young boy, it took over a year to get the videotape. This videotape was released almost immediately. So, no, I think that what's happening in Memphis is clearly a tragedy. Make no mistake about it. But the response of the government, of the city officials, of the police chief and the district attorney has been stellar. It's a model for howration in terms of how these matters are handled when white officers are involved.

But now when we have black officers involved, automatically they're fired and charged. Everybody should be treated the same way. Charge them all. Fire them all. Then let's sort it out. What do you think it is about the players involved in this instance or maybe even the context or this moment in time that makes it different? or maybe even the context or this moment in time that makes it different? To be frank, I think the video so graphically portrays abuse and violence and just inhumanity. That's what the local police chief said. It's inhumane. No one, police official, police officer, No one, police official, police officer, looking at what these men allegedly did to this young man can justify it in any shape, fashion or form. Police encounters are never pleasant. They never look, you know, neat because you're dealing with situations where violence and force may have to be used. But in this instance, with that man being held by his arms,

and they're just punching him over and over again, and you see his head snapping back and forth, there's no excuse for that. I know a lot of people have been drawing parallels between the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King some 30 years ago now. I know his daughter reacted to the video. That man was calling for his mama. Do you know how that feels? Let's do something. I'm tired. I'm tired. Aren't you tired? Come on, y'all. We got to do better than this. What do you make of that, that something quite similar happened 30 years ago and here we are three decades later? Well, here's the problem with the way we look at policing issues. We look at policing issues when they're sensational and we focus our attention on them so long as the sensation continues, so long as there's activism and charges. But after that period fades, we go back to business as usual.

Have we learned nothing from George Floyd's death? Did we learn nothing from Rodney King? learned very much from those instances because we don't have the political will to change the culture of policing and to enact national laws that would regulate the use of force, not local standards, but standards that would judge when the use of force is constitutional and permitted and when it's not. Do you think that national standards would make a difference here? Because I guess in no police code is it considered appropriate, this kind of use of force. So do you think that a national standard would actually do enough to move the needle here, right? Well, it's not. There's no one pill panacea here. No one thing

would have changed the outcome in this case. All the national standards in the world would have been violated by this kind of incident. All the training in the world would not have stopped these people, these men, from doing what they did. Here's my thinking about policing these days. There are many theories of policing. One says that we need warrior cops, cops who will go out there and rough up, you know, do what they've got to do, take down those criminals. That's a warrior cop, go into a burning building and snatch out a baby. But there's another type of police officer. They call them guardians. So if I'm having a problem with my car, I call the police. He comes and helps me. That's a helping profession.

Those officers, they were warriors. They weren't thinking about protecting and serving anyone. From the very moment they started their encounter, they were violent, they were aggressive, and they were cursing at a man who was helpless. That's just an outrage. So why does that happen? man who was helpless. That's just an outrage. So why does that happen? It happens for a number of reasons. One, we don't screen our officers to ensure that we remove from the pool those who have a propensity to use violence to solve their problems. We need to better screen our officers going in. And on the other side, we need to make sure officers realize when they come in, and this is where the national standards come into play, if they violate our standards, they're going to be punished. They'll be jailed, they'll be fired, and they'll be indicted for charges, for crimes. If there are bad apples, you need to weed them out and get them out the barrel. Do you think that there are things about the institution of policing, though, that

brings out that behavior? Like I'm thinking about militarized gear that is given to police departments, like very, very large budgets, siege mentality, police unions, which have been criticized quite a lot for protecting what a lot of people would call bad apples. I think all those things come into play. We have a lot of institutional forces. Even in the best of all worlds, you have a really good police academy training the officers properly, giving them diversity training, not to see young Black men as criminals. You do all that. diversity training, not to see young black men as criminals. You do all that. But then when you put that young man or woman out in the street and you pair them with a 10, 15-year-old veteran on that street, that vet is going to tell that young kid, yeah, that's what they tell you in school,

but this is the streets. That's different. So that's what we've heard over and over and over again when we depose officers about what did you learn in training? And they all say, oh, that's a school, you know, that doesn't apply in the street. So so that's part of the problem. But it's a multifaceted approach, just like we saw in Memphis. We have to have a police chief who's willing to call out their officers when they engage in bad conduct. We need a district attorney who's quick to indict when charges are warranted. A police chief is willing to call out their officers when they engage in bad conduct. We need a district attorney who's quick to indict when charges are warranted. But also, I think you pointed out, we also need a union.

And look, I'm a union lawyer. I've represented unions and their workers for decades. Yeah, I, too, do not want to sound anti-union. You're right. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. But bad police officers put good police officers in danger and at risk. That's what happens. Also, think about this. So X number of officers in that instance beat this man. There were other officers who were there and did

nothing to stop it. They just sat and watched it, sat and watched it. Those may have been the, quote, good officers until they had bad experiences like that. Because the one thing police will tell you, if you step into a situation and disrupt what a fellow officer is doing, they're going to look at you funny after that. Who are you with, us or them? There is a siege mentality in certain units. There's a police case we had here in the city, New York City, where it was alleged that police officers in New York City were intentionally discriminating against young Black men and stopping and searching them without cause. And they did videotape of some of these police meetings. And what did they say? We own these streets. These are our streets. Excuse me, sir. You're not from this neighborhood.

You don't own these streets. We do. We live here. Respect us and we'll respect you. So it's that kind of problem. It's an adversarial relationship that some officers have with certain communities. And that's what breeds the kind of violence we saw. It's a disrespect for communities and treating certain individuals who happen to be Black, Brown, Indigenous, or just poor differently than you treat the Hollywood executives or the Wall Street bankers. These officers that have been charged with second degree murder, as you mentioned before, they were all Black men. And I'll read you a Fox News headline. Liberals blame racism for Memphis man's brutal beating despite officers

being Black. And I wonder what you make of that idea that this wasn't racism. I mean, I hate to have a Fox News quote in an interview because mostly what they say is extreme, and that's an extreme comment. I don't know any liberal who is saying, quote, unquote, this is racism. I don't know any liberal saying that. But let me give you some context to this. Liberals and those who are concerned about police violence have not been just complaining about white racist police violence. We're complaining about police violence. We don't care what color the perpetrator is. We care about the color of the victim. It's not young white men who are being brutalized by these police.

It's black men, brown men. And who's brutalizing them? Men and women in blue uniforms, period. So this race thing is really nonsense. But let's put it in another perspective. How was this young man perceived? Who was this group? Who were these officers?

These were the Scorpions. You think about that. That was the name they gave this unit, Scorpions. What do Scorpions do? Sting and kill. That's what they do. That's their nature. It's the old adage about that. So you put these officers into this place, into this group.

And what are their what's their job? Take the guns off the street. Understandable. A really good thing to do. But their perception then becomes young black men, gun criminal. perception then becomes young black men, gun criminal. That's how they perceive. Until you demonstrate you're not, they're going to perceive you and they put you in that category. That's what happened to this young man. He was perceived as a criminal. He was perceived as someone who had no power to stop or do anything to them so they could do whatever they wanted to him. I dare say if Mr. Nichols had been a young white man in a three-piece suit driving a BMW, he would not have been treated that way, period. You know, Randolph, we started off this conversation, you were talking about how you're optimistic about some of the actions that have been taken by leaders,

the Memphis police chief, the district attorney. But, you know, we've also talked about problems that seem so deeply entrenched, right? Are you hopeful that there is a will to take on to actually make the changes necessary? I don't see that on a national level. I see it in Memphis. I don't see it in many, many other large cities. Memphis is the first place I've ever seen anything like that. So quick, so efficient. So in that sense, I do not think there is a political will to change policing. Why? Because police officers and their unions are strong and powerful political operatives. And they know how to make sure that their people are protected. I understand that. There is no group on the other side. There's no union of the victims of police violence. Frankly, no one wants to be a member of that club. So it's an imbalance. And the activists and the media get energized when there's a crisis. Then we move on to the next story or the next crisis. And policing goes back

to the way it's always been. So if we don't pay attention as activists, as lawyers, as members of community, and yes, as police officers to what's going on in our culture, then this problem is not going to go away. Just like in the United States, we have a gun culture. We have the highest number of mass shootings of any country in the world. We don't have a gun problem. We have a culture problem. We have a culture that celebrates guns and violence. That's what we do in this country. And that's a problem. That culture seeps down into all of us, all of us. And we have to work against that. We have to try and find a better way. Otherwise, we're doomed to repeat this over and over and over again until we don't have a society worth living in.

Randolph, I want to thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time today. Thank you. That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.