Body Cam Footage Reveals Fatal Police Beating of Aspiring Photographer Tyre Nichols
Memphis police have released the body camera footage that shows the brutal beating of aspiring photographer Tyre Nichols.
Warning: The content of this story is graphic in nature.
Footage of the attack, which has been broken into four videos by the Memphis Police and uploaded to Vimeo, shows five officers beating 29-year-old Nichols for three minutes. Nichols passed away from his injuries three days later on January 7.
The incident, which took place in early January, has been characterized as “heinous, reckless and inhumane” by Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis.
In a report by the Associated Press, the Nichols’ family attorney Antonio Romanucci says that the officers acted together to “to inflict harm, terrorism, oppression of liberty, oppression of constitutional rights, which led to murder.”
Nichols, who worked as a FedEx delivery driver, was also an aspiring photographer who mainly focused his lens on the landscape and cityscape of his hometown.
I liked the idea of giving this video of Tyre Nichols prominence over the video of his murder by the racist state. Here he is, alive and happy, as he should have remained: pic.twitter.com/4WbFk9mBrR
— 💭 (@samthielman) January 27, 2023
“My name is Tyre D. Nichols. I am an aspiring photographer. Well, I mostly do this stuff for fun but I enjoy it very much,” he says on his website.
The Associated Press has published a detailed story about Nichols’s artistic aspirations.
“Photography helps me look at the world in a more creative way. It expresses me in ways I cannot write down for people. I take different types of photography, anywhere from action sports to rural photos, to bodies of water, and my favorite… landscape photography,” he continues.
— Tyre D Nichols (@t_nichols_photo) September 8, 2014
— Tyre D Nichols (@t_nichols_photo) September 8, 2014
— Tyre D Nichols (@t_nichols_photo) September 8, 2014
“My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eye and out through my lens. People have a story to tell why not capture it instead of doing the ‘norm’ and writing it down or speaking it. I hope to one day let people see what I see and to hopefully admire my work based on the quality and ideals of my work. So on that note enjoy my page and let me know what you think.”
All five former officers, who were fired quickly after the incident, were taken into custody: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, and Justin Smith. Two fire department workers were also removed from active duty.
While the authorities have said that Nichols experienced a “medical emergency,” relatives have said that the attack caused him to have a heart attack and kidney failure, which resulted in his death.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
