Tyre Nichols, 29 years old, died on January 10, 2023, after being beaten by police officers following a traffic stop. His name came in the headlines after he tragically died in Memphis. Video of the confrontation between Tyree and the former officers was released by the city of Memphis on Jan. 23, 2022. Following his death, the Memphis police officers were fired and arrested. After he passed away, many people have begun to publicly mourn him online and in protests in the United States.
Who is Tyre Nichols?
Tyre Nichols was an employee at a local FedEx as well as a father of a four-year-old son. At his job, he used to work the second shift in the evenings. He was a fan of skateboarding. Following his death, a clip of him skateboarding went viral in his memory. Many people have re-shared the clip via social media to honor the late father. He also loved to photograph sunsets. He was a photographer with his own website.
Tyre, on 5th June 1993, took birth in the lap of her mother, RowVaughn Wells as the youngest son among four. His full name goes by ‘Tyre Deandre Nichols’. He was raised with his three elder siblings in Sacramento, California, USA. In 2020, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee. His mum publicly called him a “good boy.” She shared that on his days off he liked to spend his Sundays doing laundry and other household chores. “He always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn’t know this is what he meant,” she said at the press conference on January 27, 2023. “I’ll never cook for my son again,” she added. “I’ll never get a hug from my son again. I won’t get anything from my son again, just because some officers decided they wanted to do harm to my son.” Tyre had a very close relationship with her mum because of which he even had her name tattooed on his arm. The mourning mom said, “He had my name tattooed on his arm, and that made me proud because most kids don’t put their mom’s name, but he did”. “My son was a beautiful soul and he touched everyone.”
For his education, Tyre Nichols went to Encinal High School in his hometown. He began earning money at a very early age of his life.
Tyre Nichols Affair
Tyre Nichols was a father of a four-year-old son with his beautiful ex-girlfriend whose name goes by Katie. He had even posted pictures of his son carrying him in his lap on his Facebook profile. His ex-partner and son were left devastated after hearing the news of Tyre’s death.
“Everything he was trying to do was to better himself as a father for his 4-year-old son,” attorney Benjamin Crump said during the family’s news conference. He was making money to fulfill his son’s needs.
What did Tyre Nichols do wrong?
It was on January 7, 2023, Tyre Nichols was just two minutes away from his home when he was stopped at approximately 8:24 p.m. near the intersection of East Raines Road and Ross Road. The Memphis Police Department stated on January 8 that the traffic stop of Nichols was due to reckless driving.
At the traffic stop, the police officers pulled Nichols out of his car as he said: “I didn’t do anything.” An officer shouted: “Get on the fuc***’ ground … I’m gonna tase your a**.” He was repeatedly punched in the face by officers, and eventually, he fell to a kneeling position. The footage shows at least five punches to Nichols’s face. By 8:37 p.m., he was handcuffed and limp; officers propped him against the side of a police car. An ambulance arrived at 9:02 p.m. and took Nichols to St. Francis Hospital at 9:18 p.m. after he complained of shortness of breath. On January 10, he died on January 10; an autopsy found “excessive bleeding caused by a severe beating”.
How did Tyre Nichols die?
Tyre Nichols died on 10th January 2023 in hospital due to a critical condition caused by a severe beating by the Memphis police officers on January 7, 2023. Five Black police officers from the Memphis Police Department severely beat Tyre, a Black man, during a traffic stop, resulting in his death three days later in the hospital.
The police officers stopped Tyre for alleged reckless driving. Then, they pulled him from his car and used pepper spray and a taser on him. Tyre somehow managed to break away but was caught up again and was beaten for about three minutes, punching and kicking him in the head and striking him on the back with a baton while he was restrained. After hospitalizing for three days, Tyre Nichols died. An autopsy commissioned by his family found “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating”.
The five police officers who killed Tyre Nichols include:
- Tadarrius Bean (age 24, was hired in August 2020)
- Demetrius Haley (age 30, a former corrections officer, was hired in August 2020)
- Justin Smith (age 28, was hired in March 2018)
- Emmitt Martin (age 30, was hired in March 2018)
- Desmond Mills Jr (age 32, a former jailer in Mississippi and Tennessee, was hired in March 2017)
Those five Black police officers involved each had three to six years of experience. Some were members of the 30-person specialized hot spot policing unit known as Scorpion (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods), a group of undercover officers assembled in October 2021 as a response team to deal with serious crimes. Scorpion officers drove unmarked cars and dressed in plainclothes, wearing bulletproof vests marked “POLICE”. After Nichol’s death, Chief Davis called for a review of the Scorpion unit, and the unit was disbanded on January 28.
As per reports, the five officers were fired on January 20, and on January 26 they were arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, assault, and misconduct. As of January 27, all five men have posted bail and been released, according to Shelby County Jail records.
By January 28, protests had also occurred in New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Baltimore, and Newark. On social media, a #SunsetsForTyre campaign posts images of sunsets in honor of Nichols. A GoFundMe fundraiser was created by family members of Nichols that states “We want to build a memorial skate park for Tyre, in honor of his love for skating and sunsets”. By January 29, GoFundMe raised nearly US$1 million.
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