This week was made incomprehensibly difficult and painful by the release Friday evening of the video that documents Tyre Nichols’s murder at the hands of five, now former, Memphis police officers. I do not want to write about it too much tonight, simply because I want to ask you to center Black voices, as we learn more about this unspeakable tragedy. I wrote
I’m an ex police officer. Watching the video closely r from beginning to end I saw no pretext for the stop. We are left to wonder was it a traffic violation? Recognizing and stopping a fugitive for warrant service?
But most importantly, there was no initial contact. There was no statement explaining the violation. What struck me was that the first officer at the car opened the door and jerked the driver out abruptly and put him in the ground.
I believe it may be revealed that there was an off duty, unrelated reason for the stop and violent beating in gang fashion. The only combat from the victim was defensive moves and running for his life. It appears he knew what was coming.
As a police officer I never arrested a guilty person. They were suspected citizens and my job was to get them to the court. Alive. In good shape.
They may then be found guilty.
The other odd thing in the video was the amount of time they spent beating the man. Sirens. Lights. Cruisers. Screams.
And not a soul stepped out of a house to see or record by phone the police conduct.
That suggested to me the SCORPION unit runs roughshod over the district causing fear in the community they are supposed to protect.
This young man was given no opportunity to comply. No chance to surrender. No way to understand what the contract was based upon.
I never saw or heard an attempt to make a lawful arrest.
Jan 28, 2023·edited Jan 28, 2023Liked by Joyce Vance
I am unwilling to watch the footage of Tyre Nichol's getting beaten, or read the details of the footage. It reminds me of when a professor in an African history course in college showed us a film on how Dutch colonizers mistreated Africans in South Africa, and I skipped the class. Then the professor told me I could make it up by watching it in the library on my own. I told him I was not going to watch it, after seeing one already where we saw Belgian White Supremacists using special tools to crush in the faces of Black Africans who did not do what they wanted and how the shape of the tool fit into the place where a man's face was crushed in. I told him that I refused to watch anything where I was not learning something new, and where the suffering I was seeing was not further enlightening me. While I think it is tremendously important that the Memphis footage exists and is released, I am not going to be watching it. Instead I am going to want to know the results of the trial and hope that the results reflect the full awareness of the horror of this murder. Everyone I know that is Black fears being stopped by police. My friend Dona and I had taken my friend Frank from Germany out to hear music one night. Later we went for a nice drive along a lake front road into wealthy suburbs with huge mansions. My friend Dona is Black and was driving. At one point as she drove by one of the mansions on our way back into the city, a police officer who was parked by the gates of someone's enormous driveway, pulled out and followed us. He pulled us over. Frank was next to her and I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. The police officer pulled her over because he had seen her skin color. It was pretty obvious. We had told Frank even before we went out that all Blacks who drive up to those suburbs get pulled over and he did not believe us. He had not heard of the concept of "driving while being Black." So, when it actually happened he was shocked. We were not doing anything illegal. The officer looked in and he saw Frank sitting, and Frank, who is a pilot was spluttering and told him that this was like the Gestapo in Nazi times. I asked the cop why he had pulled Dona over. He tried to save face by asking if we had been drinking. I said, "1 beer 2 hours ago." So, he then told Dona that he had pulled us over because she had not been driving straight. She wanted to go along with him to get out of there and agreed that perhaps she had not been driving straight. I was furious and said, that I was sitting in the center of the car and she was driving absolutely straight and I had had a beer after eating a spaghetti dinner and I was not at all intoxicated. After I said that he let us go. Dona was scared, I was furious, and Frank was just in disbelief. Dona no longer lives in the USA. She has retired to Spain after working in UAE for many years. She is an ESL teacher. I find that Germans are often shocked at how racist the USA is, because Americans always claim the moral high ground globally, and particularly when it comes to Germans. Today I read a discussion in the NYT that Amanda Taub had with Anne Meng, a political scientist who studies autocracy. She said that she would not even code the USA as a democracy before 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. That is after WWII ended. Our democracy has not been in existence for very long and it still does not exist for everyone. Let us hope that this trial contributes to the desire on the part of the majority of Americans to be democratic.
Jan 28, 2023·edited Jan 28, 2023Liked by Joyce Vance
OMG what a unique idea, listen to the people most affected by a situation. Now if we can expand this idea to racism, homelessness, poverty, education/teaching, etc.
Our biggest problem is we don't know how to ask, nor do we know how to listen. A city council person once told me only our leaders know what is possible... obviously that is not true. But we humans are good at learning new tricks when we think they are important. Joyce just gave us a lesson. Thanks Joyce.
Joyce, I'd like your thoughts about a comment I heard on the radio today: that the 5 policemen were arrested and fired immediately because they are Black. In similar situations where the suspected officers are white, investigations, arrests, and firing are delayed for much longer, if not totally blocked. Another tragic and horrifying reminder that the Civil War continues.
Frank Figliuzzi: SCORPION LE are not out there looking for minor traffic violations.
This was a gang of sadists looking for a dopamine dump. Smoking after beating someone is about pleasure. Showing concern for fellow LE needing water to wash their eyes of mace shows what these sadists thought of Tyre: PREY.
EVERY person on that scene who did not render aid should be FIRED and ARRESTED.
The police unit SCORPION is an acronym for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. How can anything named after a scorpion mean Restore Peace?!! Do you know how to disarm a scorpion? My little Papillon dogs (all of six pounds) instinctively disarm scorpions by biting the scorpion at the base of the tail breaking it at that point making the tail limp and useless. So I never have to worry my little dogs encountering scorpions. Why were five cops addressing a mere traffic violation!!!? I'm thinking it might work to have each beat cop be paired with a psychologist trained in deescalation and non-violent techniques.
Dear Joyce: Thanks for your thoughts this very sad day. I was appalled at the lack of compassion for Tyre after viewing the Memphis video tonight only 2 years after George Floyd. I had to fight back the tears. I can see how 45’s praise of violence may have added fuel to the flame for many police officers across the country feeling emboldened to tear down humanity one face at a time. In this case Tyre’s as he tried to remain calm and tell them he was just trying to get home while asking them what was it that he had done and their response was to beat him to death. It’s time for change at the Federal level but how? Blessings to Tyre’s family tonight.
Thank you for this albeit brief (and probing) narrative on a sad and compelling subject that has been festering for decades, then got a jolt from the horrific Floyd incident - and the subsequent rapid rise of the BLM rationale and narrative.
I remember back in the day (1991) seeing grainy, distant footage of Rodney King getting his terrible and unjustified beating... but the new video from the Nichols case is simply gruesome and shockingly clear.
Here it is 40+yrs later and all too often nothing has apparently been learned. I can't imagine the pain and anger that the Nichols family must have been through (and it's getting magnified now).
Let's hope these 5 charged ex-officers become exemplars (far more than Derek Chauvin, who still got off light in my book) and really get max punishment and become teaching material at all police academies.
Yes, all five men deserve being fired and charged; hopefully, they will never serve as peace officers again, and will serve due time in prison. I wonder if this episode will serve as a standard for police accountability. I am hoping that because these five police officers were so quickly fired and charged, the next time a Derek Chauvin like situation occurs, white officers will be treated the same as these black officers. And that is a sad commentary on how our justice system evolves.
Thank you for once again articulating your compassionate and considered response to this barbarity. One thought that just struck me as to taking a concrete step in the direction of reforming our deeply-ingrained racist police practices would be to assign independent civilian oversight to inspect *all* police body-cams. It occurred to me that the *only* reason this horror came to light is that Tyre Nichols died. Had he not succumbed to the police brutality, the public would, most likely, never have heard a peep about this assault (and, I’m pretty sure the charged former-police offenders were also assuming that “their subject” wouldn’t die, even as they were attacking him). We need thorough, comprehensive, and utterly transparent oversight of all of our police departments’s practices to begin building the case that our current law-enforcement is irreparably broken, and that only a complete overhaul can address the deep flaws inherent in its current structure.
God help me, it seems that Mr. Nichols was, like so many have voiced as of late, targeted in some way to be “taught a lesson for others to learn.” Meaning “fear the police. If you do not comply, or even if you do, if they have made up their minds or have been instructed in any way to produce an outcome, you are the sacrificial lamb. And for those of color, and those of us who support their plight, once they have targeted you, is there no way out? We think of Martin Luther King’s message and way of non-violence. Should we just prepare to die? I am still reminded of Bosnia. From Mark Hertling, a post from 2020: Gosh, illegal checkpoints set up by militias that aren’t taken down by police forces...where have I seen that before? BOSNIA. As you suggest, I need to listen to the voices of those who must be heard, tonight and in the coming days. Thank you for all you write that is so inspiring.
I’m an ex police officer. Watching the video closely r from beginning to end I saw no pretext for the stop. We are left to wonder was it a traffic violation? Recognizing and stopping a fugitive for warrant service?
But most importantly, there was no initial contact. There was no statement explaining the violation. What struck me was that the first officer at the car opened the door and jerked the driver out abruptly and put him in the ground.
I believe it may be revealed that there was an off duty, unrelated reason for the stop and violent beating in gang fashion. The only combat from the victim was defensive moves and running for his life. It appears he knew what was coming.
As a police officer I never arrested a guilty person. They were suspected citizens and my job was to get them to the court. Alive. In good shape.
They may then be found guilty.
The other odd thing in the video was the amount of time they spent beating the man. Sirens. Lights. Cruisers. Screams.
And not a soul stepped out of a house to see or record by phone the police conduct.
That suggested to me the SCORPION unit runs roughshod over the district causing fear in the community they are supposed to protect.
This young man was given no opportunity to comply. No chance to surrender. No way to understand what the contract was based upon.
I never saw or heard an attempt to make a lawful arrest.
I’m glad Mr Crump is on this case.
A young man isviolentlybeaten by the cops
And not one had the balls to tell the others
to stop
Where is human decency when the police
stayed outside the classroom
And children and teachers died and
The school became their tomb
Where is accountability when
the President tells a big lie
AndCapitol Police and others die?
Where is our country and those that don’t want to help Ukraine
With so many shootings
Our country is filled with pain
I am unwilling to watch the footage of Tyre Nichol's getting beaten, or read the details of the footage. It reminds me of when a professor in an African history course in college showed us a film on how Dutch colonizers mistreated Africans in South Africa, and I skipped the class. Then the professor told me I could make it up by watching it in the library on my own. I told him I was not going to watch it, after seeing one already where we saw Belgian White Supremacists using special tools to crush in the faces of Black Africans who did not do what they wanted and how the shape of the tool fit into the place where a man's face was crushed in. I told him that I refused to watch anything where I was not learning something new, and where the suffering I was seeing was not further enlightening me. While I think it is tremendously important that the Memphis footage exists and is released, I am not going to be watching it. Instead I am going to want to know the results of the trial and hope that the results reflect the full awareness of the horror of this murder. Everyone I know that is Black fears being stopped by police. My friend Dona and I had taken my friend Frank from Germany out to hear music one night. Later we went for a nice drive along a lake front road into wealthy suburbs with huge mansions. My friend Dona is Black and was driving. At one point as she drove by one of the mansions on our way back into the city, a police officer who was parked by the gates of someone's enormous driveway, pulled out and followed us. He pulled us over. Frank was next to her and I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. The police officer pulled her over because he had seen her skin color. It was pretty obvious. We had told Frank even before we went out that all Blacks who drive up to those suburbs get pulled over and he did not believe us. He had not heard of the concept of "driving while being Black." So, when it actually happened he was shocked. We were not doing anything illegal. The officer looked in and he saw Frank sitting, and Frank, who is a pilot was spluttering and told him that this was like the Gestapo in Nazi times. I asked the cop why he had pulled Dona over. He tried to save face by asking if we had been drinking. I said, "1 beer 2 hours ago." So, he then told Dona that he had pulled us over because she had not been driving straight. She wanted to go along with him to get out of there and agreed that perhaps she had not been driving straight. I was furious and said, that I was sitting in the center of the car and she was driving absolutely straight and I had had a beer after eating a spaghetti dinner and I was not at all intoxicated. After I said that he let us go. Dona was scared, I was furious, and Frank was just in disbelief. Dona no longer lives in the USA. She has retired to Spain after working in UAE for many years. She is an ESL teacher. I find that Germans are often shocked at how racist the USA is, because Americans always claim the moral high ground globally, and particularly when it comes to Germans. Today I read a discussion in the NYT that Amanda Taub had with Anne Meng, a political scientist who studies autocracy. She said that she would not even code the USA as a democracy before 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. That is after WWII ended. Our democracy has not been in existence for very long and it still does not exist for everyone. Let us hope that this trial contributes to the desire on the part of the majority of Americans to be democratic.
OMG what a unique idea, listen to the people most affected by a situation. Now if we can expand this idea to racism, homelessness, poverty, education/teaching, etc.
Our biggest problem is we don't know how to ask, nor do we know how to listen. A city council person once told me only our leaders know what is possible... obviously that is not true. But we humans are good at learning new tricks when we think they are important. Joyce just gave us a lesson. Thanks Joyce.
Joyce, I'd like your thoughts about a comment I heard on the radio today: that the 5 policemen were arrested and fired immediately because they are Black. In similar situations where the suspected officers are white, investigations, arrests, and firing are delayed for much longer, if not totally blocked. Another tragic and horrifying reminder that the Civil War continues.
Frank Figliuzzi: SCORPION LE are not out there looking for minor traffic violations.
This was a gang of sadists looking for a dopamine dump. Smoking after beating someone is about pleasure. Showing concern for fellow LE needing water to wash their eyes of mace shows what these sadists thought of Tyre: PREY.
EVERY person on that scene who did not render aid should be FIRED and ARRESTED.
Thank you for your restraint and your respect.
The police unit SCORPION is an acronym for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. How can anything named after a scorpion mean Restore Peace?!! Do you know how to disarm a scorpion? My little Papillon dogs (all of six pounds) instinctively disarm scorpions by biting the scorpion at the base of the tail breaking it at that point making the tail limp and useless. So I never have to worry my little dogs encountering scorpions. Why were five cops addressing a mere traffic violation!!!? I'm thinking it might work to have each beat cop be paired with a psychologist trained in deescalation and non-violent techniques.
Dear Joyce: Thanks for your thoughts this very sad day. I was appalled at the lack of compassion for Tyre after viewing the Memphis video tonight only 2 years after George Floyd. I had to fight back the tears. I can see how 45’s praise of violence may have added fuel to the flame for many police officers across the country feeling emboldened to tear down humanity one face at a time. In this case Tyre’s as he tried to remain calm and tell them he was just trying to get home while asking them what was it that he had done and their response was to beat him to death. It’s time for change at the Federal level but how? Blessings to Tyre’s family tonight.

It's such a horrible and unnecessary abuse from those who claim to serve and protect, how can this keep happening? 💔
I would like to honor Tyre D. Nichols by suggesting a look at him as a person and a photographer:
https://thiscaliforniakid2.wixsite.com/tnicholsphotography
Thank you for this albeit brief (and probing) narrative on a sad and compelling subject that has been festering for decades, then got a jolt from the horrific Floyd incident - and the subsequent rapid rise of the BLM rationale and narrative.
I remember back in the day (1991) seeing grainy, distant footage of Rodney King getting his terrible and unjustified beating... but the new video from the Nichols case is simply gruesome and shockingly clear.
Here it is 40+yrs later and all too often nothing has apparently been learned. I can't imagine the pain and anger that the Nichols family must have been through (and it's getting magnified now).
Let's hope these 5 charged ex-officers become exemplars (far more than Derek Chauvin, who still got off light in my book) and really get max punishment and become teaching material at all police academies.
Yes, all five men deserve being fired and charged; hopefully, they will never serve as peace officers again, and will serve due time in prison. I wonder if this episode will serve as a standard for police accountability. I am hoping that because these five police officers were so quickly fired and charged, the next time a Derek Chauvin like situation occurs, white officers will be treated the same as these black officers. And that is a sad commentary on how our justice system evolves.
Thank you for once again articulating your compassionate and considered response to this barbarity. One thought that just struck me as to taking a concrete step in the direction of reforming our deeply-ingrained racist police practices would be to assign independent civilian oversight to inspect *all* police body-cams. It occurred to me that the *only* reason this horror came to light is that Tyre Nichols died. Had he not succumbed to the police brutality, the public would, most likely, never have heard a peep about this assault (and, I’m pretty sure the charged former-police offenders were also assuming that “their subject” wouldn’t die, even as they were attacking him). We need thorough, comprehensive, and utterly transparent oversight of all of our police departments’s practices to begin building the case that our current law-enforcement is irreparably broken, and that only a complete overhaul can address the deep flaws inherent in its current structure.
God help me, it seems that Mr. Nichols was, like so many have voiced as of late, targeted in some way to be “taught a lesson for others to learn.” Meaning “fear the police. If you do not comply, or even if you do, if they have made up their minds or have been instructed in any way to produce an outcome, you are the sacrificial lamb. And for those of color, and those of us who support their plight, once they have targeted you, is there no way out? We think of Martin Luther King’s message and way of non-violence. Should we just prepare to die? I am still reminded of Bosnia. From Mark Hertling, a post from 2020: Gosh, illegal checkpoints set up by militias that aren’t taken down by police forces...where have I seen that before? BOSNIA. As you suggest, I need to listen to the voices of those who must be heard, tonight and in the coming days. Thank you for all you write that is so inspiring.
How can this be understood? I am just heartbroken and baffled. But, we must find answers. Man’s inhumanity to man is overwhelming.