Tyrese Nichols cop acquittals show Black on Black police brutality should outrage everyone

While the world and the nation were fixated on the white smoke billowing above the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, and the latest White House assault on the U.S. economy, a group of Memphis police officers were quietly acquitted of abusing their power and brutally beating a Black man to death.

But because the cops are also Black, last week’s inexcusable verdict has failed to generate the outrage it deserves.

Yes, the Rev. Al Sharpton put out a statement denouncing the decision, and the Congressional Black Caucus expressed its disappointment.

But outside of Memphis, where the 2023 death of Tyre Nichols remains an open wound, few others have expressed the rage required for such an obvious miscarriage of justice.

Nichols, a 29-year-old father and FedEx worker, was pulled over on Jan. 7, 2023 for what police initially said was reckless driving. After fleeing for his life on foot, Nichols was caught and severely beaten by police.

Prosecutors said the cops on trial. — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, Jr. — along with two others, excessively pepper sprayed, tased and pummeled Nichols during a vicious attack that led to Nichols’ death three days later.

Two other cops  involved in the beating — Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr. — avoided a trial in state court after they agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors.

The five officers, who are all Black, were members of the Memphis police department’s Scorpion Task Force, a since-disbanded street unit that was tasked with bringing down crime levels in the city.

They were let off the hook by an all-white sequestered jury that was bused in from 350 miles away in Chattanooga, Tenn. after defense attorneys convinced a judge that because of pre-trial publicity, the officers would not be able to get a fair trial using jurors from Memphis.

The jury, despite a mountain of evidence, took about 8½ hours over two days to reach a verdict of not guilty on charges that included second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

“Today’s verdicts are a devastating miscarriage of justice,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, said in a statement. ”The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”

Cameras not only captured parts of the deadly attack, but they also recorded the cruel cops laughing and bragging about the blows they landed, as Tyre lay helpless, calling out for his mother.

“I was hitting him with straight haymakers, dog,” one of the officers said.

The saving grace was that the officers had already been convicted on federal charges, and still face jail time.  But the state acquittal sends a dangerous message to Memphis and the nation that local authorities condone such behavior, and that no citizens, especially its Black ones, are safe.

“It is also absurd that the city of Memphis has taken no responsibility, claiming these officers acted on their own, when it was the rough tactics of the since-disbanded VIPER Squad that empowered them to commit this brutal beating as Tyre called out for his mother,” Sharpton said in his statement.

When initial protests broke out in the days after Nichols’ death, much of white America washed its hands of the Black-on-Black violence. But the racial element in most police brutality cases isn’t about the color of the cop. These cases are racial in nature because the victim is almost never white.

Black cops, even in Memphis, represent a largely white institution that has tormented people of color for generations.

Race aside, police brutality by anyone against anyone should outrage everyone.