Lawyer for Tyre Nichols’ family calls for police reform to stop police killings

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• The lawyer representing the family of Tyre Nichols has called for Congress to pass police reform legislation.
• Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said that the 29-year-old’s mother hoped her son’s death would lead to a “greater good” coming from it.
• Memphis authorities on Friday released the video of five Black police officers violently assaulting Nichols after a Jan. 7 traffic stop.

The lawyer representing the family of Tyre Nichols called on Sunday for Congress to pass police reform legislation. Nichols was the Black man fatally beaten by Memphis police officers on Jan. 7. He was sent to a hospital where he died of his injuries three days later.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union, civics lawyer Ben Crump said Nichols’ mother hoped the tragedy could lead to a “greater good.”

“Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” Crump said.

On Feb. 17, the five officers involved in the beating are scheduled to appear for a bond arraignment in front of Judge James Jones of the Shelby County criminal court.

Crump said President Joe Biden on Friday urged him and Nichols’ family to use his death to galvanize support for the legislation’s passage.

Crump said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that Nichols’ mother was coping by believing that Tyre’s death can change the world.

“She believes in her heart Tyre was sent here for an assignment and that there is going to be greater good that comes from this tragedy.”

After George Floyd’s death, House Democrats introduced a policing reform in 2021 called the “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.” However, it stalled in the Senate.

The legislation aims to stop aggressive law enforcement tactics.

“It is this culture that says, `It doesn’t matter whether the police officers are Black or Hispanic or white, that it is somehow allowed for you to trample on the constitutional rights of certain citizens from certain ethnicities and certain communities,`” Crump said on CNN.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican House of Representatives Judiciary Chairman, told NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that new legislation to create new mandates for police should not be rushed.

“These five individuals did not have any respect for life. And again, I don’t think these five guys represent the vast, vast majority of law enforcement. But I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to stop the kind of evil we saw in that video,” Jordan said.

On Saturday, the Memphis Police Department announced that they disbanded the SCORPION unit to which the five officers belonged. Protests erupt in U.S. cities a day after the harrowing video of Nichols’ attack was released.

The five officers, all Black, were charged on Thursday with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression in Nichols’ death and fired from the department.

Source: New York Post