Dear Readers,
We happily welcome you all to yet another issue of Voices for Justice, where we utilize the power of our voices to speak out and seek resolution for issues surrounding the political, social, racial, and judicial inequities affecting our communities. This month’s issue of Voices For Justice newsletter comes at a time of year when members of the African-American community should be harmoniously celebrating Black History Month, but instead we are broken and torn more than ever before following the tragic death of twenty-nine year old Tyre Nichols who was laid to rest on February 1, 2023.
On January 7, 2023, the young and innocent twenty-nine year old motorist was approached due to an alleged suspicion of reckless driving and violently dragged out of his vehicle and later shown to be brutally beaten, just minutes from his home, in a thirty-eight minute video by five Black officers assigned to a special, tactical squad inside of the Memphis police department, known as the Scorpion Unit.
Video footage shows former officers Tadarrius Bean; Demetrius Haley; Desmond Mills, Jr.; Emmitt Martin, III; and Justin Smith savagely beating the twenty-nine year old father as he screamed and cried for his mother. The video captures each minute of this horrifying and total disregard for human life, as these officers held Nichols down on the ground and took turns repeatedly punching him, kicking him, striking him with batons, and screaming profanities at him, while two white Shelby County sheriff’s deputies stood by and watched.
The killing of innocent blacks continued to be unabated. From George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Tyre Nichols, and so many more. Our nation watched the now-hauntingly familiar scene play out across its screens. The tragic beating and death of Tyre Nichols is likened to the assault of the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police expressed “the event as described to us does not constitute legitimate police work or a traffic stop gone wrong. This is a criminal assault under the pretense of law.” Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis describes the officers’ actions as “heinous, reckless, and inhumane,” and went on to state that her department has been unable to substantiate the reckless driving allegations that prompted the traffic stop. She also confirms that there is no video of the traffic stop, which shows Nichols driving recklessly. Attorney Antonio Romanucci, who represents Nichols family stated the officers “acted together…to inflict harm, terrorism, oppression of liberty, oppression of constitutional rights, which led to murder.”
During President Biden’s nationally televised address and plea to congress for further police reform, Biden expresses, “We’ve seen all the knee of injustice on the neck of Black Americans,” the democratic president said, “now is our opportunity to make some real progress.”
The police state currently views Black people as subhuman. There have been measures to reform the police in the past, via body cams and more monitoring, but at the end of the day, these are applying bandaids to deep wounds. These reforms weren’t deterrents in the case of Tyre Nichols. We cannot escape these levels of injustice until we are all viewed equally — as humans, with families, lives of our own, and in part of the same community. Inferiority shall not be measured by the color of one’s skin, nor superiority shall be deemed by the color of one man’s uniform.
LOVE, PEACE, TRUTH, JUSTICE, FREEDOM!
“Justice delayed, is justice denied,”
GARY BENLOSS
(#03A6415)
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