“Come out without the lights flashing,” a Memphis resident said. “You’re out here to protect and serve, not beat up and whip. Everybody is not that hardened criminal.”
MEMPHIS — In a terrible way, the death of Tyre Nichols brings vindication to members of the Black community in Memphis who live in constant fear of the police.The fatal beating of Nichols, 29, by five police officers tells the story many residents know by heart: that any encounter, including traffic stops, can be deadly if you're Black.
A woman who lives in a “safe” northeast Memphis neighborhood yet says her 18-year-old son was hogtied and pepper-sprayed by police several years ago –- while she was with him. He became agitated after police arrived on the scene while he picked up his child from a girlfriend, triggering a mental health crisis, she said.
If you are in the wrong neighborhood “it really doesn’t matter whether you’re part of the violence or not,” said Adams. “I’m less likely to be shot in a gang conflict than I am to be shot by police.”Chase Madkins was about a block from his mother’s Evergreen neighborhood home just east of downtown Memphis dropping off his 12-year-old nephew when the blue lights of an unmarked police car flashed behind him.
The random stops are meant to terrorize, said Hunter Demster, organizer for Decarcerate Memphis. He's the one Madkins called when he was stopped in November. Marcus Hopson, 54, a longtime resident and barber in the neighborhood, said the sweeps remind him of how in the early 1990s New York focused on nuisance crimes and zero tolerance and that morphed into stop-and-frisk.
What that left here is complicated, especially when it comes to policing and crime. In 2021, the year the SCORPION unit – a specialty squad that all five officers were part of -- was set up, homicides hit a record, breaking one set in 2020, the previous year. Homicides dropped in 2022 but high-profile cases kept crime in the news. Most of the victims those years were young Black men. In the cases where arrests have been made, the suspects were overwhelmingly Black.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Memphis man says he was assaulted by same Scorpion officers charged with Tyre Nichols' deathA 22-year-old Black man says he was beaten up three days before Tyre Nichols was attacked by some of the same officers who were with the now-disbanded Scorpion unit.
Read more »
Tyre Nichols May Get Skate Park Named After Him In Memphis, SacramentoThe City of Memphis is considering honoring Tyre Nichols with a skate park.
Read more »
Days before Scorpion officers allegedly killed Tyre Nichols, a Memphis man says they assaulted himMonterrious Harris said he was beaten up three days before Tyre Nichols was attacked by some of the same officers who were with the now-disbanded Scorpion unit.
Read more »
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Revokes Membership Of Memphis Officers Involved In Tyre Nichols’ DeathNow that Omega Psi Phi has taken definitive action against the former officers, including barring them from any privileges awarded to active fraternity members, social media users say such action should be the standard and immediate response.
Read more »
Licenses suspended for 2 Memphis EMTs who failed to help Tyre Nichols after police beatingFormer Memphis Fire Department medics Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge — two of the three EMTs fired in the wake of the savage attack — could see that Nichols clearly needed to be treated.…
Read more »