Tyre Nichols and the muted response of Black Lives Matter

The reaction to the brutal death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old, after he was stopped by police has been strangely muted. Nichols, a father-of-one, died of his injuries on 10 January, three days after a confrontation with five black officers in Memphis, Tennessee. Lawyers for the family said Nichols, an African-American, was beaten ‘like a human piñata’.

The heartbreaking footage of Nichols’s mother, Rowvaughn Wells, breaking down in tears has made the headlines. But the coverage marks a sharp contrast to the fallout after the death of another man, George Floyd, at the hands of police. That incident back in 2020 triggered a worldwide outpouring of grief and anger; the response to Nichols’s death has been much quieter.

The Memphis Police Department has fired five police officers

Black Lives Matter, the movement that emerged in the wake of Floyd’s death, has kept largely shtum about this incident. A short retweet from BLM’s account states matter-of-factly: ‘5 Memphis cops were fired after a Black man they violently arrested over an alleged traffic violation died at a hospital on Jan. 10. Tyre Nichols’ family say police ‘brutalised’ him, causing him to suffer from cardiac arrest and a broken neck. No officers have been charged.’ ‘Cops don’t belong at traffic stops,’ BLM said.

As of today there appears to be nothing about Nichols on BLM’s website and no reply to my email asking whether they intend to release a statement. What might explain this muted reaction?

Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for Nichols’s family, described the encounter with police as ‘an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes. Not only was it violent, it was savage,’ he said.

Attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, claimed what happened was reminiscent of the incident in Los Angeles in 1991, involving Rodney King, a black motorist, who was beaten by white police officers. ‘Unlike Rodney King, Tyre didn’t survive,’ he added.

The Memphis Police Department has fired five officers following an investigation of the incident. The officers are alleged to have violated a number of rules, including on the use of force, and a duty to intervene.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have opened a civil rights investigation into Mr Nichols’s death. Whatever the outcome of that probe, there is little doubt that policing in the US needs to change. 

Having been on the receiving end of the wrath of police in Los Angeles, I know all too well how terrifying it is. After hitting a curb in my car, I was stopped and thrown over the bonnet by an overzealous cop. When I stupidly owned up to having consumed a single bottle of beer earlier that evening, all hell broke loose. Rather than sending me on my merry way, the beefy cop yelled in my face, threw me back over the bonnet and began to frisk me. Being held down was excruciatingly painful but I knew better than to resist. Even so, he felt the need to call over his equally beefy female colleague to help spread my legs.

With his hand round the back of my neck, I did my best ‘I’m a hopeless Englishman’ Hugh Grant shtick, but that only seemed to make matters worse. The final straw came when they demanded I test for alcohol by following the movement of a pencil with my eyes. I kept failing, but only because I have a squint, which means my eyes move at slightly different speeds. This mild disability enraged the officers. I can only imagine what fate might have awaited me had I dared question the severity of the punishment or indeed their unnecessary use of force.     

If a bumbling Englishman like myself, who accidentally bumps into a curb, can elicit such an extreme response, should we be surprised when authorities come down heavily on the owner of a speeding vehicle after he attempts to flee on foot as happened in Nichols’ case? 

Nichols’ death is a tragedy – and it shows again why the status quo of law enforcement in the US cannot go on. It’s a pity that BLM – and other campaigning organisations that are usually keen to shout from the rooftops – are not speaking out more about this case. 

Unlike the chaos that ensued following George Floyd’s death in 2020 perhaps we should use Nichols’ death as a way to unify people. It is high time to address the extraordinarily tricky business of how to safely police the streets, without it ending in carnage and the hasty dismantling of western civilisation.