Tyre Nichols was killed by a cop in Memphis: a family member of the Wells family is charged with trespassing
The Vice President and other senior level administration officials will attend the funeral, according to a White House official.
The Vice President offered the family support after she expressed her deep sympathies, the official said.
Harris was invited by the Wells family. White House Director for the Office of Public Engagement Keisha Lance Bottoms and senior adviser to the president Mitch Landrieu will also be in attendance.
President Joe Biden spoke with the Wells family hours before a video of the police beating of Nichols was made public.
The administration presence at the funeral will come as come as prospects for federal legislative reforms on policing, which the Wells family has pushed for, appear slim.
According to CNN, the video shows Memphis police hitting Nichols multiple times while he screamed for his mother. Although paramedics arrived minutes after officers disengaged, Nichols appears to be left on the pavement without assistance for stretches of time before an ambulance comes.
The footage drew stunned reaction from law enforcement experts and outrage from officials including Biden, who said it was “yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day.”
In her own statement Friday, Harris said, “Tyre Nichols should have made it home to his family. 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 chairman of the congressional black caucus invited the parents of the victim to Washington as guests and they accepted the invitation, according to the executive director.
Tyre Nichols, Jr., and the Rev. Al Sharpton, a Blue Ribbon to the American Crime Scene, and a Tribute to Martin Luther King Jr.
Biden is facing renewed calls to discuss police reform at his address to Congress. The statement said that a White House meeting was needed this week to push for negotiations.
Tyre Nichols, whose death at the hands of police in Memphis led to second-degree murder charges against five officers, will be remembered at a funeral service on Wednesday for the life he lived.
Mourners at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis are expected to celebrate Nichols’ life rather than focus on the heart-wrenching footage of the beating that left him in a hospital bed for days with his face badly swollen and bruised before his death, sparking protests across the country.
Representing other Black people killed by police, Tamika Palmer – whose daughter Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police during a botched raid in March 2020 – is expected to attend the service.
Also expected is Philonise Floyd, the younger brother of George Floyd, whose name reverberated across the nation following his May 2020 death after an ex-cop Minneapolis cop knelt on his neck and back for more than 9 minutes.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a painfully familiar role, will deliver a eulogy that will pay tribute to Nichols’ life and serve as a clarion call for justice.
The Mason Temple Church of God In Christ headquarters in Memphis was where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
You thought that no one would respond. You thought no one would care. The Vice President of the United States will be going to his funeral tomorrow, according to Sharpton.
My brother was the quietest person you have ever met. He’s never lifted a finger to nobody. Never raised his voice to nobody,” Dupree said. “If my brother was here today and he had to say something, he would tell us to do this peacefully.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/01/us/tyre-nichols-funeral-service/index.html
Tyre Nichols, Jr: A Memphis Public Service Officer, Fire Deputies, and Law Enforcement After the Covid-19 Robbery
Nichols has been described as a devoted son who had tattooed his mother’s name on his arm, a loving father to a 4-year-old boy, and a free spirit with a passion for skateboarding and capturing sunsets on his camera.
Public outrage over the disturbing arrest video led to firings or disciplinary action against other public servants who were at the scene, including the firings of three Memphis Fire Department personnel. The two sheriff’s deputies have been put on leave. Additionally, two more police officers have been placed on leave.
The brutal attack sparked largely peaceful protests from New York to Los Angeles as well as renewed calls for police reform and scrutiny of specialized police units that target guns in high crime areas.
According to his mother RowVaughn Wells, Nichols was the baby of his family and spent Sundays doing laundry and preparing for the week.
He moved to Memphis from California right before the Covid-19 pandemic and remained there after the mandatory lock downs prompted by the health crisis, his mother has said.
Nichols was a regular at a Germantown, Tennessee, Starbucks where he befriended a group of people who regularly set aside their cellphone at a table and talked mostly about sports, particularly his beloved San Franscisco 49ers, according to friend Nate Spates Jr.
It took him a while to get to his job at FedEx after his visits to Starbucks. His mother recalled that he would would come home for dinner during his break. His favorite dish is her homemade sesame chicken.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/01/us/tyre-nichols-funeral-service/index.html
A Photographer’s Journey through the Looking-At-A-Distance-Towards Strangeness – A Journey Through the Past, Past, and Future
Taking pictures was a form of self expression that writing could never capture for the man, who wrote on his photography website that it helped him look at the world in a more creative way.