Tyre Nichols latest news: Parents to attend Biden’s State of the Union as deadly Memphis police beating video leaves questions

A makeshift memorial to Tyre Nichols has been formed in the neighborhood where five Memphis police officers allegedly beat him, leaving him with injuried that would ultimately prove fatal.

Neighbors and visitors have left balloons, flowers, and stuffed animals at the site in memory of Mr Nichols.

A video analysis conducted by The New York Times found that Memphis police officers gave Tyre Nichols 71 commands over the course of 13 minutes after they stopped his vehicle.

As noted by the analysis, some of the commands given to Mr Nichols were confusing and contradictory. In other instances the officers demanded Mr Nichols comply with demands that he already had complied with, such as “getting on the ground” while he was already on the ground.

The bodycam footage of the arrest appears to show Memphis officers using Mr Nichols inability to follow the string of vague and sometimes impossible commands to justify escalating their response tactics.

A skatepark in Sacramento that Tyre Nichols visited regularly said it planned to hold a vigil for him at 6:30pm PST.

Mr Nichols was a regular at the park before he moved to Memphis in 2020.

Niko Chapman, who grew up in the area, remembered Mr Nichols fondly. He recalled to Fox 2 how, when he was younger, his parents would only let him visit the skatepark if they knew Mr Nichols was there to help look out for him.

“You remember people that are really kind to you, and Tyre was just a really kind person,” Mr Chapman said. “He just always made me feel really welcome.”

The daughter of a Black man killed by police back in 2014 has said that Tyre Nichols’ death echoes what happened to her own father.

Emerald Garner, whose father was choked to death by a police officer in New York in 2014, spoke to NewsNation on Friday following the release of the footage of Nichols’ brutal beating at the hands of law enforcement in Memphis earlier this month.

“It’s a replay of what happened eight years ago, almost nine…. to my father,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Ms Garner pointed out differences in the handling of the two cases.

Memphis officials fired the five officers and charged them with Nichols’ murder while NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo was not charged and stayed on the force until 2019.

“If we would have had that in 2014, would there have been a Tyre Nichols today? I don’t think so,” she said.

On Friday, Memphis officials released footage of the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols at the hands of law enforcement.

The Black man, 29, died earlier this month – three days after he was pulled over for a traffic stop and punched, kicked and beaten with batons by a group of police officers.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr, and Justin Smith were fired from Memphis Police Department and charged with murder.

Watch part of the footage from the fatal beating below:

The daughter of Eric Garner has hit out at Memphis officials over the release of the footage of Tyre Nichols’ brutal beating at the hands of law enforcement.

Emerald Garner told NewsNation that the footage was shared like “a premiere of the movie”, saying that law enforcement’s handling of the video was another example of “just how they do things”.

“The fact that we waited for this video to be released like it was an exclusive movie that needed to be premiered on a certain day, it really boils my blood. It’s just heart-wrenching,” she said.

She added: “Tonight was a direct show of just how they do things. You held the video. Why? Why couldn’t the family get their closure at the moment that they needed it? It had to be controlled by this system.

“You held it like it was a premiere of a movie that needed to be watched by the world – a public lynching.”

Ms Garner, whose father was killed by police in New York in 2014, spoke out hours after the footage of Nichols’ deadly arrest was released to the public.

The parents of Tyre Nichols will attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address next week, according to reports.

After accepting an invitation from the Congressional Black Caucus, Nichols’s mother and father – RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells – will attend the president’s address.

Chairperson of the caucus, Steven Horsford, said he spoke with Nichols’ parents “to first extend our condolences to them, to let them know that we stand with them, to ask them what they want from us at this moment”.

Read the full story here:

Former president made comments at a campaign event in South Carolina.

But now, the very future of the unit, known as SCORPION or Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, is in question as lawyers and community activists call for its wholesale overhaul.

The unit, consisting of 40 officers, was set up in October 2021 and received a high-profile launch. The officers were to be split into four teams and focus on car theft, gang-related offences, and drug crimes.

Read the full story by Andrew Buncombe here: