Authorities in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, released video footage of five police officers brutally beating Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man pulled over in a traffic stop earlier this month.
The video footage is incredibly disturbing, containing graphic violence and strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.
The footage was released one day after the five officers, who are all Black, were charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in connection with the assault.
The chilling video, which shows the officers chasing and pummeling Nichols and leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they fist-bump and celebrate their actions, raises tough questions about policing culture in the United States. Demonstrators took to the streets on Friday in largely peaceful protests, while prominent figures called for reform.
"I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death," President Joe Biden wrote in a statement. "It is yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day."
"We must do everything in our power to ensure our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all," the president continued. "Real and lasting change will only come if we take action to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again."
Memphis authorities released video footage Friday showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by police officers who held the Black motorist down and repeatedly struck him with their fists, boots and batons as he screamed for his mother and pleaded, “I just want to go home.”
Throughout the footage, Nichols could be heard screaming and pleading for his mother: "Mom!"
The recordings shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack. After the first officer roughly pulls Nichols out of a car, Nichols can be heard saying, “I didn't do anything,” as a group of officers begins to wrestle him to the ground.
“Get on the ground!," one officer yells, as another is heard yelling “Tase him! Tase him!”
Nichols calmly replied soon after being wrestled to the pavement, “OK, I’m on the ground.” Moments later, as the officers continue to yell, Nichols says, “Man, I am on the ground.”
An officer yells, “Put your hands behind your back before I break your ***.” Moments later, an officer yells, “****, put your hands behind your back before I break them.”
“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Nichols says loudly to the officers. “I’m just trying to go home.”
“Stop, I’m not doing anything,” he yells moment later.
The camera is briefly obscured, and then Nichols can be seen running as an officer fires a Taser at him. The officers then start chasing Nichols.
Other officers are called and a search ensues before Nichols is caught at another intersection. The officers beat him again, this time using a baton, kicking and punching him.
Security camera footage shows three officers surrounding Nichols as he lies in the street cornered between police cars, with a fourth officer nearby.
Two officers hold Nichols to the ground as he moves about, and then the third appears to kick him in the head. Nichols slumps more fully onto the pavement with all three officers surrounding him. The same officer kicks him again.
The fourth officer then walks over, unfurls a baton and holds it up at shoulder level as two officers hold Nichols upright, as if he were sitting.
“I’m going to baton the **** out you,” one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Nichols. The officer strikes Nichols on the back with the baton. He strikes strikes him again, and then a third time.
The other officers then appear to hoist Nichols to his feet, with him flopping like a doll, barely able to stay upright despite the bracing arms.
An officer then punches him in the face, as the officer with the baton continues to menace him. Nichols stumbles and turns, still held up by two officers. The officer who punched him then walks around to Nichols’ front and punches him three more times. Then Nichols collapses.
Two officers can then be seen atop Nichols on the ground, with a third nearby, for about 40 seconds. Three more officers then run up and one can be seen kicking Nichols on the ground.
At one point, as Nichols is slumped up against a car and none of the officers are rendering aid, the body camera footage shows a first-person view of one of them reaching down and tying his shoe.
It takes more than 20 minutes after Nichols is beaten and on the pavement before any sort of medical attention is provided to him, even though two fire department officers arrived on the scene with medical equipment within 10 minutes.
In an interview following the release of video, Nichols' family said that they are still searching for answers about his death -- but they said it was important for the public to see the truth behind the incident.
"I just want them to see why they charged these police officers with murder," Rodney Wells, Tyre Nichols' stepfather, told ABC News on Friday night. "For an individual to weigh 150 pounds and to be brutalized by five officers is unheard of and we needed the public to see it so they can make their own judgment."
The video shows Nichols crying out for his mother, RowVaughn Wells; the incident took place just yards from her home, police video shows. She told ABC News that she could feel his pain in those moments.
"I felt a lot of pain and discomfort in my stomach and at the time I didn't know what it was," Wells told the outlet. "But once I found out, then I just said that was my son's pain that I was feeling."
RowVaughn Wells went on to talk about what it was like seeing Nichols in the hospital -- after being told that he was pepper sprayed and tased.
"When I got to the hospital, my son was beaten up, he had bruises all over his body, his head was the size almost of a watermelon," she described. "His neck was busted because of the swelling. His neck was broken. My whole son's body was just black and blue. They had him on all these breathing machines. He'd already went into cardiac arrest and his kidneys were failing."
"It just shocked me because I was told something else," Nichols' mother added.
Rodney Wells said that he hopes more individuals involved in the incident -- including first responders -- are charged. "Everyone that was active in the whole scene, the whole video, should be charged."
"When I said initially that they mess with the wrong family, they did not know the character of the person who they were brutalized," Nichols' stepfather said. "They did not know that he was such an outstanding citizen."
"They did not know that Tyre had such a beloved following, so to speak ... a beautiful soul, and raised by a beautiful woman who raised a beautiful human being," he continued. "They didn't know that the repercussions that was going to come behind what they did, their actions."
When asked what she will miss about her son, RowVaughn Wells replied simply: "Everything."
"His beautiful smile, his just whole sense of humor," she said. "He was just a bright spot ... If he thought I was mad at him, oh, that would just hurt his poor heart, even at 29."
"He even put my name on his arm," she added. "I mean, what child wears his mother's name?"
"I'm just gonna miss my baby. He was just a sweetheart."
Throughout the videos, officers make claims about Nichols’ behavior that are not supported by the footage or that the district attorney and other officials have said did not happen. In one of the videos, an officer claims that during the initial traffic stop Nichols reached for his gun before fleeing and almost had his hand on the handle, which is not shown in the video.
After Nichols is in handcuffs and leaning against a police car, several officers say that he must have been high. Later an officer says no drugs were found in his car, and another officer immediately counters that Nichols must have ditched something while he was running away.
Authorities have not released an autopsy report, but they have said there appeared to be no justification for the traffic stop, and nothing of note was found in the car.
The video raised questions about the role and possible culpability of the other officers at the scene, in addition to the five who were charged. The footage shows a number of other officers standing around after the beating.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis has said other officers are under investigation for their part in the arrest. Davis described the five officers' actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane."
During the traffic stop, the video shows the officers were “already ramped up, at about a 10,” she said. The officers were “aggressive, loud, using profane language and probably scared Mr. Nichols from the very beginning.”
“Police are trained to understand that people might flee just because they are scared,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who studies use of force.
President Joe Biden said he was outraged by the "horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols' death" released Friday night and renewed his call for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to passed in Congress.
"We must do everything in our power to ensure our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all," Biden wrote in a statement. "Real and lasting change will only come if we take action to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again."
"Tyre Nichols should have made it home to his family," Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement. "Yet, once again, America mourns the life of a son and father brutally cut short at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve. The footage and images released tonight will forever be seared in our memories, and they open wounds that will never fully heal."
"The persistent issue of police misconduct and use of excessive force in America must end now," Harris continued. "I join President Biden in his call for accountability and transparency. We must build trust—not fear—within our communities."
"Congress must act with urgency and pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act," she added. "To truly honor Tyre Nichols’ memory, and the memory of so many others before him, we must demand that our justice system lives up to its name."
Other lawmakers from around the country echoed the president's calls for police reform.
"I don't care how much you train people, officers have to know that there will be consequences," said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who as a member of the House was a lead negotiator on the the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, on MSNBC.
"The devastating video released this evening reflects a level of violence and disregard for human life that cries out for justice and reform," said House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass. "Congress has an obligation to forge a safer, more just future – one where nobody is subjected to such horrific violence. We passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to move America closer to that future, & it is our imperative to send this bill to the President’s desk."
Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore said "police accountability must be the rule, not the exception" and called for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth tweeted prior to the video being released that, "Tyre Nichols should be alive today," adding "to achieve true justice in America, Congress must pass bold police reform. Now."
Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat who recently announced a run for Senate, said the United States "must commit ourselves to the work of reforming our policing and criminal justice system."
Americans took to the streets to protest Friday night in the aftermath of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, releasing video of Tyre Nichols' deadly beating by police.
The demonstrations, largely peaceful, took place in multiple cities across the country, including in Memphis, where protesters blocked the heavily-traveled Interstate 55 bridge that connects the city to Arkansas.
Nichols’ relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully.
“I don’t want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said Thursday. “If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully.”
Christopher Taylor was one of the protesters at the Interstate 55 bridge on Friday. He said he watched the video. The Memphis native said it was horrible that the officers appeared to be laughing as they stood around after the beating.
“I cried,” he said. “And that right there, as not only a father myself but I am also a son, my mother is still living, that could have been me.”
In Washington, dozens of protestors gathered in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House and near Black Lives Matter Plaza.
Other cities nationwide braced for demonstrations, but media outlets largely reported only scattered and nonviolent protests. Demonstrators at times blocked traffic while they chanted slogans and marched through the streets of New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Portland, Oregon.
Court records showed that all five former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — were taken into custody.
The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond and been released from custody by Friday morning, according to court and jail records.
Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law.
Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said in a statement late Friday that two deputies who appeared on the scene after the beating were relieved of duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, condemned the alleged actions of the Memphis officers.
“The event as described to us does not constitute legitimate police work or a traffic stop gone wrong. This is a criminal assault under the pretext of law," Yoes said in a statement.
As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police department’s “full and complete cooperation."