“Anger is understandable, but violence is never acceptable.” US President Joe Biden has somehow tried to call for calm on Thursday evening as protests mount once again over police violence, after the fatal arrest in early January by five black police officers of Tire Nichols, an Afro man. -American in Memphis, Tennessee (south).
“As Americans mourn, the Justice Department investigates, and authorities continue their work, I join Tire’s family in calling for peaceful protests.”Joe Biden said in a statement, also calling for a “quick, complete and transparent investigation” on this drama.
The five police officers were charged and imprisoned on Thursday January 26 for murder following the death in early January of Tire Nichols, a few days after his arrest. This has been qualified as“appalling” by the authorities. These police officers from Memphis, a large city in Tennessee, all African-Americans, are the subject of several charges, including murder, assault and battery or kidnapping.
On January 7, the police – since dismissed – wanted to arrest Tire Nichols, 29, for a traffic violation. As the officers approached, a “confrontation had taken place” et “the suspect fled” explained the police. Caught up, Tire Nichols was finally arrested but complained of having difficulty breathing and was hospitalized. He died three days later.
The details of this arrest are not yet clear: a video of the facts exists, but has so far only been shown to the relatives of the victim and their lawyers. According to these, “the police beat him to the point that he was unrecognizable”. “This is an outright, non-stop beating of this young man for three minutes”said the lawyer Me Antonio Romanucci.
During the press conference on Thursday, the authorities avoided describing precisely the course of events, referring to the images. But what happened was «inadmissible» et “criminal” et “shouldn’t have happened”, hammered David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, saying to himself “shocked” et “disgusted” by what he saw. “In a word, it is absolutely appalling.”
In his statement, Joe Biden says that “Tyre’s death is a painful reminder that we must do more to ensure our justice system delivers on the promise of fair and impartial justice.” The Democratic president is urging Congress to pass a police reform bill, passed in the House of Representatives in 2021 but which did not pass the Senate hurdle.
Since the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, the US Congress has been unable to pass any ambitious police reform in the United States, including a ban on chokeholds.
The issue of police reform is a major issue for the African-American electorate, and on which Joe Biden had campaigned in 2020. Joe Biden says so far he has “intent to perform” in the presidential election of 2024, and has promised to make its decision public at the beginning of 2023.
