Impassioned calls for police reform at Nichols’ funeral

‘TYRE NICHOLS SHOULD HAVE BEEN SAFE’

Mourners arrive to the funeral service for Tyre Nichols at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn., on Wednesday. JEFF ROBERSON — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

APTOPIX_Tyre_Nichols_Funeral_74343--e40d0#2_1059379342.jpg

Vice President Kamala Harris, left, holds the hand of Tyre Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, sitting beside her husband, Rodney Wells, at the funeral. ANDREW NELLES — THE TENNESSEAN VIA AP

Image

By Aaron Morrison and Adrian Sainz

The Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. >> Tyre Nichols’ family and friends remembered him with songs of faith and emotional tributes Wednesday, blending a celebration of his life with outraged calls for police reform after the brutal beating he endured at the hands of Memphis police.

Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, fought back tears as she spoke lovingly of her son.

“The only thing that’s keeping me going is that I truly believe that my son was sent here on assignment from God. And I guess now his assignment is done. He’s gone home,” she said, urging Congress to pass police reform.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris both delivered impassioned speeches calling on Congress to approve the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a broad package of police reforms that includes a national registry for police officers disciplined for misconduct and a ban on no-knock warrants.

Harris said the beating of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, by five Black police officers was a violent act that went against the stated mission of police to ensure public safety.

“It was not in the interest of keeping the public safe, because one must ask, was not it in the interest of keeping the public safe that Tyre Nichols would be with us today? Was he not also entitled to the right to be safe? So when we talk about public safety, let us understand what it means in its truest form. Tyre Nichols should have been safe,” she said.

Sharpton said the officers who beat Nichols might have acted differently if there was real accountability for their actions. He also said he believes that if Nichols had been White, “you wouldn’t have beat him like that.”

“We understand that there are concerns about public safety. We understand that there are needs that deal with crime,” Sharpton said.

“But you don’t fight crime by becoming criminals yourself. You don’t stand up to thugs in the street becoming thugs yourself. You don’t fight gangs by becoming five armed men against an unarmed man. That ain’t the police. That’s punks,” he said, to rousing applause from the crowd.

The Rev. J. Lawrence Turner called Nichols “a good person, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a human being” who was gone too soon and “denied his rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, denied the dignity of his humanity.”