President Joe Biden said he was “outraged and deeply pained” after watching video released Friday night of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols at the hands of police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden said he was “outraged and deeply pained” after watching video released Friday night of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols at the hands of police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.
“It is yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day,” Biden said in a statement.
Beginning about 7 p.m. Eastern time, Memphis officials made public a series of videos from the scene, including one taken from a pole. Officers could be seen pepper-spraying, punching and kicking Nichols, and striking him with a baton. At one point, Nichols, 29, cries: “Mom! Mom!” After the beating, several officers stood around talking while he lay motionless on the ground.
Nichols, a Black man, died after injuries suffered during a traffic stop earlier this month. Five police officers, all of them Black, were charged on Thursday with second-degree murder in his death.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in a separate statement, said, “The footage and images released tonight will forever be seared in our memories, and they open wounds that will never fully heal.”
Before the release, the president expressed worry about the prospect of violence. “I am obviously very concerned,” Biden said on Friday evening as he left the White House for Camp David.
“I spoke with Tyre’s mother and expressed my condolences,” the president said, adding he told her lawmakers should pass the George Floyd Act, a package of police reform measures that stalled in the last Congress.
“I can only do so much on an executive order at the federal level,” Biden added.
White House officials, including Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall, held a call earlier Friday with mayors of more than a dozen major cities to brief them on federal preparations for possible protests.
In a statement on Thursday, the president called for a full investigation and urged demonstrators to protest peacefully.
“It has a lot to say and do with the image of America. It has a lot to do with whether or not we are the country we say we are,” he said Friday night. “That we’re a country of law and order, a means by which we can peacefully protest and let the courts make the judgment.”
Police reform was an important issue for Biden during his 2020 campaign, after protests erupted around the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The president often credits Black Americans for turning his campaign around after he won the South Carolina primary race, ultimately helping him secure the nomination.
(Updates with Harris statement, in fifth paragraph.)
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