Black cops do not mean we are safe to some of them Black Lives still don’t matter
Many Black people do not trust the police because they often feel scared or nervous around them, even when they have done nothing wrong. This is especially true when they have kids with them.
Many of us think police officers see us as animals because they act like they’re better than us. As things to be dispatched: or strangled, or sent to our deaths after a hail of bullets in our backs or kicks to our sternum. Many times, people are killed for holding a bag of Skittles, a toy gun, or nothing at all. We think cops see us as lower than white people because _. No one is lower than me. The dirt is lower than me.
There’s one particular part of the horrid, hourlong video showing the beating death of Tyre Nichols that you need to focus on if you want to understand all of it.
Five officers were charged with second-degree murder after Nichols, 29, was handcuffed and seated on the ground, moaning in pain and bloodied, following a brutal attack. One officer tells Nichols to sit up as he begins to fall over. No compassion or aid is given at this point. After the game, the police were standing around talking about how the Titans did.
This time Nichols falls over completely. He is badly beaten after all. Again, there is little humanity shown by Nichols. He is actually taunted by one person at the scene.
The cops in the video act like a gang. They look like goons.
You see how Black lives don’t matter to these police in that moment. What you see in that moment is the extreme clarity of centuries of dehumanization, what it looks like to see Black bodies as less than, and it doesn’t matter if the cops are Black. When some Black cops join the system, they dehumanize themselves as well. Their own people become the enemy.
Earlier in the video, one cop says: “I hope they stomp his ass.” One street cam video shows a cop repeatedly kicking Nichols in the head. He is also hit in the face with some type of baton. Later, Nichols calls out for his mom.
The centurieslong bloody timeline of the interaction between police and Black people has several historical markers. The more recent ones include the 1991 attack on Rodney King and of course the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Because the officers displayed callousness and viciousness, the killing of Nichols will be another one of those markers. This will be looked back on as one of the ugliest moments we’ve experienced as a nation.
”
“What I saw was beyond the scope of what is condoned in this police department,” Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis told NBC News on Friday. This is completely next level. Outside of humanity, you know. I will not mention training. I mean humanity.
“What I saw stunned me,” said Jim Strickland, mayor of Memphis. On Friday, he told The Commercial Appeal: “My first emotion was sadness – sadness for Tyre – watching him go through what he was going through.” Some disbelief and then. I’ve never seen anything like it. I felt anger towards the person who treated the other human being so poorly.
The killing of Black people at the hands of police is a national issue that happens everywhere, from the West Coast to the East, from the Midwest to the Southwest.
The beating of King has been compared to the attack on Nichols. What’s remarkable is that the police who beat King didn’t know they were being videotaped. The police were using bodycams. Even though they knew their actions were being recorded, they still behaved like that.
An execution is when a traffic stop results in a death. It does for Black and brown people because we are Black and brown. It seems that we die over so little. Or nothing at all. Please refer to my previous answer.
So far, there is no proof of a traffic violation committed by Nichols. Some police feel that they don’t need a gun when it comes to us. We are not Americans or fellow citizens. We aren’t for the Constitution. What rights? We have no rights.
We always need to remember that Nichols was a person. He was someone’s father. Skateboarding was his favorite activity. He was alive.
He was important. Black lives matter. It doesn’t matter how much it seems to the police.