Attorneys liken Tyre Nichols’ arrest to Rodney King beating
Associated PressMEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis police officers beat motorist Tyre Nichols for three minutes, treating him like “a human piñata” in a “savage” encounter reminiscent of the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King, attorneys for the family said Monday. Crump said Nichols’ family agreed to investigators’ request to wait a week or two before making the video public to “make sure to give this family what they want most, and that is justice.” Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said in a statement Monday that investigators don’t want to risk compromising the investigation. All five officers are Black, though Crump said that was irrelevant and that Black and brown motorists often are treated differently than whites regardless of the officers’ race, and that the pain of Nichols’ death “is just the same.” Nichols’ stepfather Rodney Wells, who said the family wants the officers charged with first-degree murder, told reporters that his stepson had good reason to run from the officers. “All my son was trying to do was come home,” said Wells, who sobbed during the news conference and told reporters Nichols was less than 80 yards from home when Memphis police officers “murdered him.” “We’re going to get justice for my son, Tyre, if that’s the last breath I take,” she said.