Americans discovered with horror on Friday night, January 27, the video of the brutal arrest of Tire Nichols, an African-American who died at the age of 29 three days after being beaten by the police. The photos released by Memphis authorities show the victim being punched, kicked and punched by five black police officers following a routine nighttime traffic stop in this large Tennessee city on January 7.

The first images, taken by police pedestrian cameras, show them driving and chasing a car. When it stops, the officers rush in and scream: “Get out of that car!” Get out of that damn car”. Tire Nichols doesn’t even have time. One of the policemen violently tries to pull him out of the vehicle.

We then hear the young man trying to calm things down: ” I did nothing “, “I just want to go home!” ». The police around him shout louder: “Lie down! Turn over! »

“Okay, I’m lying down”. The police continue to scream, visibly panicked. Tire Nichols then tries to free himself. Sprayed with irritant gas and targeted by a Taser, he still manages to escape.

The following video is terribly violent. Tire Nichols is on the ground, held down by two police officers. One of them gives him a first knee, it’s the beginning of a proper beating. A third policeman approaches, baton in hand, and knocks the man to the ground twice. A fourth comes forward as his colleagues manage to fix Tire Nichols. And he also punches, but with his fists, five times, directly in the face of the person he is going to challenge. The blows rain down, the victim standing for a moment before collapsing to the ground.

Long seconds follow, or the man gestures on the ground before he is dragged to a car, where the police will try in vain to keep him sitting, leaning against the door. For a brief moment the camera passes over his face, he is swollen and covered in blood.

The last image shows the flashing lights of an ambulance, which only arrives after about twenty minutes. Three days after this beating, Tyler Nichols died in a Memphis hospital.

A call for “peaceful” gatherings

When US President Joe Biden responded about thirty minutes after the explosive video was released, he said to himself “scandalized” and “deeply bruised”.

On Friday, the first demonstrations began in various cities across the country, including Washington, New York and Memphis. In a sign that the issue is potentially explosive, Mr Biden had called for the rallies to stay “peaceful” and spoke on the phone that afternoon with Tyre Nichols’ mother and stepfather.

“When my husband and I arrived at the hospital and I saw my son, he was already dead. They had reduced him to mush. He had bruises all over, his head was swollen like a watermelon.”told in tears RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tire Nichols, in an interview broadcast Friday by the CNN channel.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis warned that the video showing the man’s arrest was “comparable or even worse” to the one showing the violent arrest of Rodney King in 1991. The acquittal, a year later, of the four police officers involved sparked unprecedented riots in Los Angeles. M^me Davis explained on CNN that the photos of the five police officers depicted one “kind of group effect”.

Authorities had called for calm for several days in anticipation of demonstrations following the publication of a condemned video “shaking” by David Rausch, the director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Tire Nichols’ family themselves have called for peaceful gatherings. “Please demonstrate, but demonstrate safely”said her stepfather, Rodney Wells.

“Say His Name”

In Memphis, protesters marched when the video was released, chanting: “Say his name. Cover Nichols ». “You wouldn’t listen to us”proclaimed the procession in this city where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. In New York, more than 200 people marched chanting “No Justice, No Peace”.

Elsewhere in the country, the police prepared for possible overflows. Two Joe Biden advisers have spoken to the mayors of sixteen American cities about the protests.

The five African-American police officers, who have since been fired, have been charged with murder and jailed. Four of them were later released on bail. FBI Director Christopher Wray said to himself “terrified”and Attorney General Merrick Garland said a federal investigation had been opened.

While expressing their horror, the family lawyers as well as the parents of the young man wanted to say hello “speed” measures against the police.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a famous civil rights figure who will give the eulogy for Tire Nichols, said the fact that the police are black makes “the even more shocking event”. “We are against all police violence, not just against police violence committed by white people”he said.

The debate about police violence revived

This case finds a particular echo in the country, which is still marked by the death of George Floyd in May 2020, and the demonstrations against racism and police violence, to the cry of “Black Lives Matter” (“black lives matter”) that followed. The drama has sparked the debate about police violence in the country.

Joe Biden too required in a press release “quick, complete and transparent investigation” on this drama. “We cannot ignore the fact that deadly police actions have affected black people more”he remembered.

The Democratic president is urging Congress to vote on a police reform bill that passed the House of Representatives in 2020 but failed to clear the Senate hurdle. Since the murder of George Floyd, Congress has been unable to pass any ambitious police reform, not even one to ban chokeholds.