Who was Tire Nichols, the young dad of the case that is shaking America

He was pulled over for dangerous driving fifty yards from his home and ended up in the Memphis hospital, where he died three days later. Thus begins the story of Tire Nichols, 29 years old, African American, father of a 4 year old boy. His case has been shaking America since the night between Friday and Saturday when the police in Memphis, Tennessee, released four videos showing five officers, African Americans like Nichols, brutally beating the man, after stopping him for a routine checkup on January 7. The images were made available by the cameras worn by the policemen themselves and by some surveillance cameras.

“Mother, mother!” Tire Nichols cried, while he was kicked, punched and beaten, as shown by the bloody images of the videos available on the net. He hoped to be heard by his mother who was at his house, a few meters away from him. And that cry immediately brings us back to the voice of George Floyd, who repeated the same word, in the knowledge that he could not save himself from the brutal ferocity of the agents who had stopped him. It was May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis and in a few hours the streets of the United States turned into demonstrations against racism, shouting “Black Lives Matter”. Today, the same thing is happening. In Washington, protesters gathered in Lafayette Park, near Black Lives Matter Plaza, and on K Street while in Boston they marched along Tremont Street. NBC reports protests also in Sacramento, San Francisco, Atlanta, Asheville, Philadelphia, Providence and Dallas.

Nichols worked as a courier for FedEx, was fond of skateboarding and photography. “He loved his son. All he was trying to do was better himself as a father to his 4 year old son» declared the well-known civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, representing Nichols’ parents. For the death of the young father, the five officers were fired and are accused of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping and abuse of office, as well as “second-degree” murder. According to Cerelyn Davis, Chief of Police of Memphis, who compared the beating of Nichols to that of Rodney Kingwhich sparked the 1992 protests in Los Angeles, «there is no evidence of any infraction by Nichols».

In the last few hours, Nichols’ mother has also launched an appeal for the demonstrations to take place peacefully. The woman did not have the opportunity to see her son before her death because, according to what she herself reported, the police told her they could not reach her son “under arrest”. “The most significant thing,” commented Rodney Wells, father of Nichols, “is the fact that there are maybe ten officers and no one tries to stop the beating of my son, not even afterwards: they smoke cigarettes, as if everything were quiet. They lean him against the car, he collapses and an officer shouts: “Sit down, son of a bitch”, but he is handcuffed. They have to bring it up, more than once. But no one helps him».

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