What A Day - Five Memphis Cops Charged In Death Of Tyre Nichols

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second degree murder for the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died days after he was violently arrested on Jan. 7th.  Footage of the incident is set to be released Friday night — and lawyers for Nichols’ family, who have seen the video, compared it to the infamous police beating of Rodney King in 1991.And in headlines: Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank, the College Board said it will revise its pilot AP course on African American Studies, and Virginia Democrats defeated three Republican attempts to restrict abortion in the state.Show Notes:What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastCrooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffeeFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday 

It's Friday, January 27th. I'm Trevelle Anderson. And I'm Priyanka Arabindi, and this is What A Day. On today's show, the accused gunman in Monday's mass shooting in Northern California reportedly confessed to the crime. Plus, the fight over teaching African-American history is flaring up in Florida. But first, let's talk about the latest news out of Memphis, where five former police officers have been charged for the killing of Tyree Nichols. In case y'all haven't heard, Nichols was a 29-year-old Black man who loved skateboarding, photography, and sunsets, according to his family.

He died on January 10th, three days after a traffic stop by officers from the Memphis Police Department. Before we get into the most current updates on the case, I'm going to detail what we know about the order of events that led to his death. According to the police, it starts on January 7th at approximately 8.30 p.m. local time when officers pulled over a car for suspected reckless driving. They then say a confrontation occurred between the officers and the vehicle's driver, later identified as Nichols, who then fled on foot. The police say they apprehended him and that another confrontation occurred that resulted in Nichols' arrest. I'll note here that the details

on what exactly these quote-unquote confrontations were was not immediately made public. What we do know is that an ambulance was called to the scene of the arrest after Nichols complained of shortness of breath, and he was then transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition. Three days later, he died due to injuries sustained in the, quote, use of force incident with officers. Of note, all five officers involved here are also Black men. Five days after Nichols' death, the officers were taken off duty as a local investigation began. Days after that, a federal investigation was declared. And then on January 20th, the officers were named and fired due to violating, quote, multiple department policies.

Two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols' quote, initial patient care, were also fired. Yeah, it's a story we've heard too many times. So can you talk to us about how Tyree's family and the broader community have responded to his death? As you can imagine, they want some answers. In the days after his death, Tyree's family hired Ben Crump as their attorney. Ben Crump obviously is a name many of us are familiar with, as he's represented the families of an unspeakable number of victims of police brutality over the years, from Trayvon Martin to Mike Brown to Breonna Taylor to George Floyd.

And he's been voicing on the family's behalf a desire for the body camera and surveillance footage of the traffic stop to be released. On Monday, the family actually got a chance to view footage of the incident, and one of their lawyers described the footage saying, quote, he was a human pinata for the police officers. It was an unadulterated, unabashed, nonstop beating of this young boy for three minutes. The violence Tyree endured is being compared to that of Rodney King's infamous beating by police in 1991. Yeah, it's horrific. And you don't even need to see the video to know that. On Wednesday night,

Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis released a video statement about this case. What did she have to say? Well, let's take a listen. And, you know, I want you to pay close attention to the tone of her message here, because to me, it's very telling. This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual. This incident was heinous, reckless and inhumane. And in the vein of transparency, when the video is released in the coming days, you will see this for yourselves. I expect you to feel what the Nichols family feels. I expect you to feel outrage in the disregard of basic human rights, as our police officers have taken an oath to do the opposite of what transpired on the video.

I expect our citizens to exercise descriptions from the family's lawyers, the footage will be bad, right? Which is obviously one of the reasons why formal charges were announced against the officers yesterday. The charges include second degree murder, aggravated assault, and aggravated kidnapping. Yeah, I mean, you don't hear a police chief say something like that very often, if at all, in this country. And if they are, something must have gone severely, severely wrong. Yeah. So I want to look ahead to what we can expect, you know, in the coming days. So the footage from the night that these officers stopped Tyree Nichols is expected to be released sometime tonight after 7 p.m. Eastern.

The Shelby County District Attorney confirmed that this footage includes police body camera footage and possibly cell phone and home surveillance video as well. Activists are not happy about the delay in releasing this footage. They had been expecting it to come out after the Nichols family viewed the footage on Monday, but the DA's explanation is that the investigators in this case wanted to finish up as many interviews with the officers and the witnesses as possible before they made this footage public in order to avoid any chance that people would change their statements based on the footage and what they saw. You know, I get that. We want them to be able to do their jobs to the fullest extent, but we should also note the timing, right, of this release. It's happening on a Friday night,

usually where you put things that you don't want people to pay attention to, you know? Right. Yeah. To me, the timing is very telling. Releasing anything after hours on a Friday screams that you don't want people to see it. You are trying to prevent it from getting the attention that it would otherwise. But I think that they are very well aware at this point that whether they release it at two in the morning or in primetime, this would be getting a lot of attention and the footage will be truly horrific. The Memphis police chief pretty much said so herself in her statement. They expect people to be in the streets protesting, not just the brutality of these officers, but the brutality of a system that allows this to happen repeatedly to black and brown people in particular. She acknowledged that this is pretty much guaranteed to happen.

We heard that in the clip. Her ask was that people exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully. And that call was echoed by President Biden himself, who said that he understood the outrage and was joining Tyree's family and calling for peaceful protest. In his statement from yesterday, he also called for meaningful police reforms. We should note that Congress failed to come to an agreement on a package of reforms called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act back in 2021. Last year, Biden signed an executive order with new use of force rules for federal law enforcement. But those rules don't apply to local law enforcement. And it's clear here that there is still so much left to be done.

You know, it's always interesting to me when these situations happen and folks make calls for peace as if peace is a logical response to violence. Right. Because it does not seem to be to me. You know, we've covered stories like this many times on this podcast, and it never gets easier, but they always call for peace. You know why they call for it, but it'll never be the right response. Yeah. You mentioned the Shelby County DA earlier.

I want to circle back to that because I know there's some interesting context around him specifically in this position. Tell us what we need to know. Yeah, so our co-host Josie Duffy Rice flagged this for us and I thought it was really important to share. So from 2011 up until last year, Republican Amy Weirich was the DA in Shelby County.

She was at the center of this outrageous case where she brought criminal charges against a black woman who had a prior felony conviction and tried to register to vote. Tennessee has really confusing rules for restoring voting rights, and this woman's probation officer actually signed a form saying that she was eligible to register. So she quite literally had the sign-off. But the case attracted national attention and outrage, and Weirich ultimately lost her bid for re-election last year. It was a big win for criminal justice reform advocates and activists, and it also gave us the new Shelby County DA, Democrat Steve Mulroy. The DA is the

person who decides whether or not to prosecute. In this case, he is prosecuting. But had this happened a few months prior while Weirich was still in office, this situation might look very different. There may not have been any charges against these officers, let alone the murder charges and the other ones that we are seeing against them now. Yeah, I'm glad there's some sort of accountability being put forth in this case. And so glad that that Republican Amy Weirich is not overseeing this. Yeah, what a nightmare that would have been. Republican Amy Weirich is not overseeing this. Yeah, what a nightmare that would have been. I mean, this is already a nightmare, but even worse.

Yeah. We'll be following this story very closely over the weekend, as should all of you. And we'll be back with more on Monday. Let's get to some headlines. Headlines. We have an update on Monday's deadly mass shooting in Half Moon Bay, California. In a jailhouse interview with a local TV reporter, the accused gunman, who worked at the two farms where the attacks took place, reportedly admitted to the crime, which left seven people dead and another person injured. He said he did it because he was bullied by co-workers, forced to work long hours,

and also believed he was suffering from a mental illness. The San Mateo County DA told the LA Times the suspect's comments were, quote-unquote, consistent with what he already told investigators. It's not clear if he has a lawyer representing him. Meanwhile, state officials are investigating the two sites for possible labor and workplace safety violations. And just six months ago, another shooting broke out at one of those farms, though no one was hurt in that incident. Separately, authorities in L.A. County are

still trying to determine a motive for Saturday's deadly shooting in Monterey Park. So far, they have not been able to draw a connection between the 11 deceased victims and the gunman behind that attack, who was also dead. Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the city of Jenin yesterday, marking one of the deadliest attacks in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades. Palestinian officials said nine people were killed and 20 others were injured in the shootout, while Israeli military officials claimed that six, quote-unquote, terrorists were killed in what they described as an operation targeting Islamic Jihad militants. The Palestinian Authority said on Thursday it would end its security coordination with Israel in the wake of the violence. Israeli military forces have relied on their relationship with the authority to carry

out raids in the West Bank, though similar moves in the past only lasted for a few months. This all comes just weeks after members of Israel's new far-right government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have pledged violence against Palestinians and called for the annexation of the West Bank. The College Board, which sets the standards for advanced placement courses at high schools nationwide, said it will revise its pilot course on African American studies before it releases the official framework on February 1st. It comes after three Florida high school students said they plan to sue Governor Ron DeSantis, whose administration earlier this month barred the course from being taught in the state. Florida's education

commissioner even called the original proposal, quote, woke indoctrination masquerading as education. The college board said the decision to make revisions wasn't influenced by Florida's decision and no states or school districts have had a chance to see the actual framework just yet. I hope the schools and I mean the states, whoever needs to agree, are down for it because that sounds like a class that a lot of people could benefit from and a facet of history that you don't learn about a lot in school as it is. Absolutely. California Representative Adam Schiff is now the second person officially vying for Senator Dianne Feinstein's job. Schiff, who was booted off the House Intelligence Committee in a power move by Speaker Kevin McCarthy just days

ago. Power move makes that sound cooler than it was. It really was not. Made the announcement on Twitter yesterday. He touted his experience with taking Republicans to task and leading former President Donald Trump's first impeachment. After all that, I wish I could say the threat of MAGA extremists is over. It is not. Today's Republican Party is gutting the middle class, threatening our democracy. They aren't going to stop. We have to stop them. That's why I'm running for the U.S. Senate. Yeah, I really can't with that soundtrack, but I mean, he's a nice man. He's a nice man, but I'm sorry. That music's gotta go. Earlier this month, Representative Katie Porter threw her hat into the ring,

and Representative Barbara Lee is also expected to join the race, which technically hasn't even started yet. That is because Feinstein, who is 89 years old, has not said whether or not she will seek reelection. Maybe give the senator a head start, though. This race sounds like it's going to be hard on the knees. Listen, she should just go sit down somewhere. Go ahead and retire. It's OK, love. You've done enough.

Yeah. I mean, if I was 89, I'm sorry. You know what I'd be doing I was 89, I'm sorry. You know what I'd be doing? Watching the original Gossip Girl. It just reruns every day in my house. That's what I'm going to be doing. Looking back on the glory days, hey, Dave, good TV.

Not trying to be in the Senate, please. Virginia Democrats shit-canned Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin's proposal for a 15-week abortion ban yesterday, handing a huge victory to abortion rights advocates in the state. The Virginia State Senate's Education and Health Committee overwhelmingly voted to block Youngkin's bill, along with two other anti-abortion bills, one of which would have banned the procedure later in pregnancy, while the other would have banned abortions outright with little to no exceptions. Virginia Senate Majority Leader Louise Lucas tweeted a photo of herself putting documents in a trash can with the caption,

All of Glenn Youngkin's bills to limit abortion rights come to my committee. I put them straight into my trash can. I love it. If that isn't pro-life, then why does it give me so much of it? It's a good question. You know, I was wondering where you were going with shit canned. Really came full circle there. Love it. It's a good question. And you know, I was wondering where you were going with shit canned. Really came full circle there. Love it.

And finally, some close encounters of the giant flying rock kind. Last night at 7.27 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, an asteroid the size of a large moving truck whizzed past South America's southern edge in one of the closest recorded approaches by a known near-Earth object. The object came about 2,200 miles from the Earth's surface, bringing it within the orbit of Earth's many human-made satellites. The asteroid, known as 2023 BU by scientists and close friends, was initially discovered last Saturday, not by NASA, but by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov, who spotted it from an observatory in Crimea, which is under Russian occupation. NASA quickly assessed that 2023 BU would not hit the Earth, but even if its trajectory did take it towards a collision,

given its relatively small size, our nifty atmosphere would have burned it right up. Reassuring. While it scooted past Earth without any trouble, its proximity to our gravitational pull was enough to reorient its trajectory around the sun, making BU 2023 kind of like the girl who studies abroad and comes back calling every train the tube. You know, Priyanka, I'm old enough to remember a movie called Don't Look Up in which everybody was like,

oh, it's absurd. It's not real. Next thing you know, we got stuff falling out of the sky. Mm hmm. Oh, that's a question. What did they know? And when did they know it? I don't know.

Just asking. And those are the headlines. We'll be back after some ads to talk about how the brightest minds of the House GOP are coming together to waste everyone's time. It's Friday, Wild Squad, and this week we are debuting a little segment we are calling Rent Free. Oh, yes. We love new segments. New segments. Good vibes. We're into it. You may have heard us mention this in every single episode we have ever made. But in addition to this pitch perfect podcast, you hear five days a week. We also put out an equally hilarious newsletter every single night. Yes. But if your eyes are just too damn tired from doom scrolling to even think about opening your email, we're here to make it a little easier

to get you up to speed on what you've been missing in your inbox. Joining us this week is Cricket Associate Editor, Julia Clare. Hello. Thanks for being here. Hi. Thank you guys for having me. Excited to be here speaking and not typing. Well, we're thrilled to have you. So thank you for stopping by. Absolutely. So Julia, it's been a little busy out there in the world with Trump about to make a comeback on Facebook and George Santos still somehow holding a job in Congress. But what's the one headline that's been living rent free in your brain this week? Well, you know, it has been a messy week in the House of Representatives. I think it is only going to get worse.

But the thing that's been living rent-free in my head is a lot of the new sham investigation subcommittees that have been created. There's one called the Subcommittee for the Weaponization of the Government, which is really fun and flirty. And there's another one. This is really the heart of the matter. The Subcommittee Investigating the Government Response

to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Because guess who's on that panel? Guess who Kevin McCarthy selected? I don't even want to guess. COVID conspiracy theorist to the stars, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Of course. Knew it. I was like, that's too big of a guess for it to be my first guess.

I can't. We got to start small. But no, they just went for it. Yeah. You could say that that's the theme of this entire GOP caucus is they just went for it. The entire subcommittee is stacked with COVID quote unquote skeptics like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who literally still this week is calling it the quote so-called pandemic. So we stan conspiracy theory girl boss. And most famously, she compared mask requirements to the quote abuses suffered by Jews during the Holocaust.

Wow. All right. I tried to block that one out of my brain. So anyways, that's the gal who's on the committee. Cool. So it sounds like they're doing some hard-hitting stuff. Can't wait to see what comes of this. Just absurd. I think it's really a top tier use of government time and resources.

And only the most serious legislators are getting the keys to the kingdom. And that's beautiful. Something to aspire to for us all, I suppose. Well, that was Crooked Associate Editor Julia Clare. She works tirelessly through this entire news cycle to bring you What A Day's nightly newsletter, which if you haven't already, you can subscribe to at crooked.com slash subscribe. Julia, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much, Priyanka, Travelle. Excited to be here. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, narrowly avoid a collision with the Earth, and tell your friends to listen.

And if you're into reading and not just anti-choice bills that go straight in the trash like me, What Today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Priyanka Arabindi. I'm Trevo Anderson. And get a better aim, asteroids. Okay, you're gonna have to do better than that. Or maybe don't do better than what you're currently doing.

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