Civil rights and community activists in Chicago are calling for changes in police accountability nationwide following the release of body camera video by Memphis police showing the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols. NBC 5’s Karen Aguilar reports.
Civil rights and community activists in Chicago are calling for changes in police accountability nationwide following the release of body camera video by Memphis police showing the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.
Footage released Friday night shows Memphis police officers kicking, punching and clubbing the 29-year-old for more than three minutes after the father was pulled over for reckless driving. In the footage, which reveals the extent of the beating, five officers are seen towering over Nichols, who pleaded for his mother.
Nichols died three days following the beating.
"As a community, we have a right to be disgusted," said Bishop Tavis L. Grant II, with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. "We have a responsibility to be disturbed."
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Grant, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., along with other members of Rainbow PUSH held a news conference Saturday morning, where they voiced outrage at the officers' actions and pleaded for justice.
"Tyre Nicholas was a father," Grant said. "There is a child now that will not have his father, a family that won’t have a brother, and so at the end of the day, we have an arduous huge morality to bring about balance and equilibrium."
The five officers were fired for their actions in Nichols' death and earlier this week charged with murder.
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"Now we know, because of the video, there were nine or more individuals on the scene," Grant said. "Everyone on the scene, those especially in supervisory positions, must be held accountable."
Jackson, additionally, called for police reform and accountability, as well as "honest due process."
Activists say they want not only a strategy for better police policies, but more community involvement in the process.
"We know here in Chicago what is happening in Memphis," Grant said.
At a unrelated event Saturday, Lightfoot addressed police brutality in light of Nichols' death.
"We have to do some soul searching about what we do and how we recruit, but apparently also how we hold our officers more accountable," Lightfoot said.
For change to occur within the Chicago Police Department, Rainbow PUSH urges Chicagoans to participate in the upcoming Feb. 28 municipal election, when people will be allowed to vote for police district councils for the first time.
