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The Guardian - US
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Mostafa Rachwani (now), Maanvi Singh, Gabrielle Canon, Maya Yang and Chris Stein (earlier)

Protests after video of fatal Memphis police beating is released – as it happened

Tyre Nichols Police Joe Biden Memphis Republican Party
RowVaughn Wells, center, mother of Tyre Nichols, is comforted during a memorial service in Memphis, Tennessee, on 17 January.
RowVaughn Wells, center, mother of Tyre Nichols, is comforted during a memorial service in Memphis, Tennessee, on 17 January. Photograph: Mark Weber/AP

This blog is closing now. You can continue to read our coverage – the main story is here, and further coverage can be found here. Thank you for reading.

Closing summary

We will leave it there for tonight, here are the key moments from today:

  • Memphis police released footage of deadly traffic stop that resulted in the death of 29 year old Tyre Nichols.

  • The disturbing video footage, which was released in several parts, showed Nichols crying out “mom” as he was on the ground with officers around him. Some of the chaotic footage shows officers punching and kicking Nichols. One officer shouted that he would “baton the fuck outta of you”.

  • The footage has elicited comparisons to the beating of Rodney King in 1991. Here is a description of the videos released by the Memphis police department.

  • The sheriff of Shelby county, Tennessee announced that two deputies who were at the scene after Tyre Nichols was beaten have been “relieved of duty”.

  • Five police officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr and Justin Smith – were charged on Thursday with murder. Here is an explanation of the charges.

  • Protests erupted across the country, including in Memphis, where the connecting I-55 bridge between Memphis, Tennessee and West Memphis, Arkansas was blocked.

  • 3 protesters were arrested in New York after a police vehicle window was smashed, among what was described as a mostly “peaceful” demonstration.

  • Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, said she has not been able to bring herself to watch the videos of her son’s beating, urging carers to shield children when the footage is being played. “The humanity of it all. Where was the humanity? They beat my son like a pi​ñata,” she said in an interview with CNN. “People don’t know what those five police officers did to our family.”

  • Joe Biden spoke with Wells and Nichols’s stepdad, Rodney Wells, to express condolences. “There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a beloved child and young father,” the president said. “But Mr and Mrs Wells, Mr Nichols’s son, and his whole family deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation.”

As protests in Memphis wind down, organisers can be heard encouraging demonstrators to “bring that same energy” to a planned demonstration on Saturday:

Pizza and water were handed out to protesters, after streetlights along the interstate were cut off earlier tonight:

CNN is reporting that 3 protesters have been arrested in New York tonight, after a mostly “peaceful” demonstration.

The protest that has shut down the I-55 bridge in Memphis has not seen any arrests. There was an estimated 100 protesters, and seem to be dispersing in the last half hour.

Key event

Mostafa Rachwani with you, taking over from Maanvi Singh, and beginning in New York, where police have arrested at least one person after protesters smashed the window of police vehicle in Times Square.

The New York Times is reporting that around 200 protesters have gathered on 46th Street and have blocked traffic, with dozens of police officers on standby.

It comes as protests erupted across the country, including in Memphis, where protesters blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River toward Arkansas.

Dozens of protesters have also gathered in Lafayette Park in Washington, near Black Lives Matter Plaza and, as well as on K Street.

Protesters have also gathered in Boston, marching down Tremont Street, with traffic also being affected.

NBC is reporting protests in Sacramento, San Francisco, Atlanta, Asheville, Philadelphia, Providence and Dallas as well.

Updated

The latest

  • Protests have erupted across the US in reaction to graphic footage showing Memphis police officers’ brutal beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man and father to a four year old. The footage has elicited comparisons to the beating of Rodney King in 1991. Here is a description of the videos released by the Memphis police department.

  • Five police officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr and Justin Smith – were charged on Thursday with murder. Here is an explanation of the charges. The officers were members of a specialized street crimes unit that lawyers for Nichols’s family and advocates are calling to disband.

  • Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, said she has not been able to bring herself to watch the videos of her son’s beating, urging carers to shield children when the footage is being played. “The humanity of it all. Where was the humanity? They beat my son like a pi​ñata,” she said in an interview with CNN. “People don’t know what those five police officers did to our family.”

  • Joe Biden spoke with Wells and Nichols’s stepdad, Rodney Wells, to express condolences. “There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a beloved child and young father,” the president said. “But Mr and Mrs Wells, Mr Nichols’s son, and his whole family deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation.”

    This has been Maanvi Singh. The Guardian’s Mostafa Rachwani will continue to follow developments.

Updated

‘He had a beautiful soul’: Tyre Nichols’s parents reflect on the son who was taken from them

Tyre Nichols, the latest in a long line of young American Black men whose death is tied to the police, was a “beautiful soul” and home-loving son with his mother’s name tattooed on his arm, his family and friends have said.

Described as “a momma’s boy” by his mother, RowVaughn Wells, the 29-year-old Memphis, Tennessee, resident, the youngest of four children, was also a father himself. He leaves a four-year-old boy whom he loved to teach skateboarding.

“You’ve got to put that skateboard down. You’ve got a full-time job now,” Nichols’s stepfather Rodney Wells recalled telling Nichols during a press conference this week.

“He looked at me like, ‘Yeah, right,’ because that was his passion.”

Friends at the Tobey skate park in Memphis held a candlelit vigil for Nichols on Thursday evening.

The job, Wells said, was as a shift employee at FedEx for the last nine months, but home was never far from his mind even as he was working. He would come home every evening, mid-shift, for his meal break, RowVaughn Wells said.

She believes that’s what he was doing on the night he was stopped and killed by five Memphis police officers. “He was trying to get home to safety,” she told CNN on Friday.

Read more:

Two sheriff deputies on scene have been 'relieved of duty'

The sheriff of Shelby county, Tennessee has announced that two deputies who were at the scene after Tyre Nichols was beaten have been “relieved of duty”.

In a statement, sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr said he watched video of the beating for the first time tonight, and has “concerns” about the deputies’ conduct. Bonner did not say why he was concerned or describe the deputies’ conduct.

The office is launching an internal investigation, Bonner said.

Updated

Images of Tyre Nichols being beaten have drawn comparisons to Rodney King’s 1991 beating.

King, who was brutally attacked by Los Angeles police department officers, barely survived. His daughter, Lora Dene King, spoke at a viewing of the footage released by the Memphis police today.

“I’m sorry that we’re still in the same place, more than 30 years later,” she said.

Los Angeles erupted after the officers who beat King were acquitted.

Earlier, Lora Dene King told NBC: “People wonder where the anger comes from, this is where. If you see someone time and time again, who looks like you, your dad, your brother, how would you feel? It’s a pattern and we’re still here.”

Lora Dene King, a Black woman in a yellow cardigan, speaks into press microphones. She has a pained expression.
Lora Dene King, daughter of Rodney King, spoke in Los Angeles during a viewing of the videos showing the beating of Tyre Nichols. Photograph: Allison Dinner/Reuters

Updated

In New York’s Times Square, protestors have gathered with chants and signs.

And so have police officers. Reporters on the ground say some protestors have been detained.

A group of protestors, some with raised fists, march through a brightly lit street in Times Square.
People protest in Times Square. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Protestors in New York’s Times Square. Silhouettes of protestors against a screen showing an American flag. One protestor’s fist is raised.
Protestors in New York’s Times Square. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Officers in uniform are photographed amid proestors.
Police officers deployed at the Times Square protest. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

As the Guardian reported in 2020, during a wave of protests following the police killing of George Floyd, police arrested, detained and attacked protestors. Amid warnings that the protests tonight could boil over, activists – including Reverend Earle Fisher below – have pointed out that police are often the aggressors when violence breaks out at demonstrations.

Updated

Body camera footage, released this evening, caught an officer saying, “I hope they stomp his ass. I hope they stomp his ass,” as he and others chased down Nichols

Earlier, the officers warn that Nichols will get “blown out”.

Nichols’s family’s legal team has said an independent autopsy found he “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating”.

Some of the most chilling moments in the videos capture the officers tying their shoes, and helping each other clean the pepper spray from each others’ eyes after beating Nichols.

“He was a human piñata for those police officers,” said Antonio Romanucci, an attorney for the family. “Not only was it violent, it was savage.”

Updated

Protestors are gathering across the US to protest police brutality.

In California, Stevante Clark, whose brother Stephon Clark was killed by police in 2018 while standing in his grandmother’s back yard, is leading the march in Sacramento, California.

Updated

Reverend Earle Fisher, the senior pastor of Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, spoke with PBS about the grief, anxiety and shock that people in the city are processing.

“I trust the poise and the passion of the people,” he said, as protestors take to the streets.

That the officers are facing consequences is a result of protests and advocacy in recent years, he added. “This is the byproduct of several years of righteous advocacy,” he said.

But the brutality inflected on Nichols is part of larger systemic failures in the police system. “This is not isolated, it’s connected,” Fisher said.

Updated

Protestors gather in Memphis

Protestors have blocked the bridge connecting I-55 bridge between Memphis, Tennessee and West Memphis, Arkansas.

President Biden has released an official statement now that the footage has been released.

“Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’s death,” the president said. “We must do everything in our power to ensure our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment and dignity for all. ”

Here are his comments in-full:

Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death. 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.

My heart goes out to Tyre Nichols’s family and to Americans in Memphis and across the country who are grieving this tremendously painful loss. The footage that was released this evening will leave people justifiably outraged. Those who seek justice should not resort to violence or destruction. Violence is never acceptable; it is illegal and destructive. I join Mr Nichols’s family in calling for peaceful protest.

I spoke with RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells, Mr Nichols’s mother and stepfather, this afternoon. There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a beloved child and young father. Nothing can bring Mr Nichols back to his family and the Memphis community. But Mr and Mrs Wells, Mr Nichols’s son, and his whole family deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation.

We must do everything in our power to ensure our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment and dignity for all. Real and lasting change will only come if we take action to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again. That is why I called on Congress to send the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to my desk. When Senate Republicans blocked that bill, I signed an executive order that mandated stricter use of force standards and accountability provisions for federal law enforcement, as well as measures to strengthen accountability at the state and local level.

Updated

Content warning: below is a description of the graphic footage released by Memphis police today of the events that led to Tyre Nichols’s death.

In the third video Nichols can be heard shrieking, again calling out to his mother. Several officers then mull about – more than the five charged in the incident – as Nichols remains on the ground, leaned against a car, talking to one another about the incident.

The fourth video, footage from a mounted camera, shows a clearer shot of Nichols being beaten from above, without audio.

Three officers appear to be holding onto him. Nichols is repeatedly kicked in the head and face, while he is on the ground.

A fourth officer comes into the frame and extends a baton, before hitting him in the head and face, repeatedly. The other officers continue to hold onto him. A fifth officer is seen kicking him again.

After the beating, Nichols, handcuffed, is left on the wet pavement before one officer drags him to an unmarked car and props him against it.

Five officers then stand around him until more arrive at the scene. At one point, Nichols can be seen slumping and falling over.

Updated

Content warning: below is a description of the graphic footage released by Memphis police today of the events that led to Tyre Nichols’s death.

The disturbing video footage, which was released in several parts, sheds light on the fatal events. In one video, which is from a police body camera, Nichols can be heard crying out “mom” as he was on the ground with officers surrounding him. Some of the chaotic footage shows officers punching and kicking Nichols. One officer shouted that he would “baton the fuck outta of you”.

In the first clip of four, Nichols appears calm after he is ripped from his car, telling the five officers that they are doing a lot and that he is already on the ground. Nichols is then seen breaking away and running, shortly after the officers attempt to tase him.

The second shows the moments after officers catch up with him. He is quickly pepper sprayed. Nichols can be heard screaming for his mom – who lived nearby – while the officers scream at him to give them his hands. Multiple officers appear to be holding Nichols as another beats him.

Memphis police release footage of deadly traffic stop

The footage of the brutal beating has been released, showing the incidents that led to Tyre Nichols’ death.

Federal prosecutors appear to be launching a criminal inquiry into the campaign finances of Republican George Santos, according the Washington Post.

Citing anonymous sources, the Post outlined how the justice department asked the Federal Election Commission to provide relevant documents and also postpone any enforcement actions against Santos while the investigation moves forward. Santos and his attorney reportedly did not respond to requests for comment and both justice department and FEC spokespeople declined to comment.

From the Post:

The 34-year-old congressman, whose election to Congress from Long Island last year helped the GOP secure its narrow House majority, has apologized for what he called “résumé embellishment” while rebuffing calls for his resignation.

Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday interviewed two people about Santos’s role in Harbor City Capital, an investment firm that was forced to shut down in 2021 after the SEC accused it of operating a “classic Ponzi scheme.” SEC interest in those people came after they were quoted Wednesday in The Washington Post describing how Santos solicited an investment in Harbor City at an Italian restaurant in Queens in late 2020.”

Updated

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, released a statement calling for “critical reforms” in the wake of Tyre Nichols’ death, but also asked for demonstrations – expected across the country tonight – to remain peaceful.

Here is his statement in full:

“My thoughts are w/ Tyre Nichols’ family & the Memphis community. As those who were blessed to call Mr. Nichols family, friend, or neighbor mourn, we must commit to pursuing justice for his death, which feels all too familiar for far too many Americans, especially Black Americans.

His killing is a violation of the social contract between law enforcement & the people they are sworn to protect—& people are rightfully demanding accountability, corrective action, & justice. I join Mr. Nichols’ family and President Biden in asking for demonstrations to remain peaceful.

We must support the efforts of authorities as they continue their investigation. And elected officials must continue taking steps to create a justice system that is truly equal for all. I’m committed to working w/ Senator Booker and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to finally achieve critical reforms.”

Updated

Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr, told the Black community that they should not feel obliged to watch the Tyre Nichols footage once it gets released later today.

In a tweet on Friday, King wrote:

“You don’t have to watch the video of #TyreNichols being beaten by police. You don’t have to subject yourself to that trauma.

It should not require another video of a Black human being dehumanized for anyone to understand that police brutality is an urgent, devastating issue,” she added.

Dr Bernice A King, daughter of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr Bernice A King, daughter of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr in Atlanta, Georgia. Photograph: Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Updated

Businesses in downtown Memphis have started to board up their store fronts in anticipation of protests as Memphis police prepares to release footage of Tyre Nichols later tonight.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre urged for police reform as she condemned the brutal death of Tyre Nichols in a press briefing on Friday.

Jean-Pierre said:

“We all must recommit ourselves to the critical work that must be done to advance meaningful reforms …

The president continues to believe that in order to deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths and we need to build lasting trust between law enforcement, the vast majority of whom wear the badge honorably, and the communities they are sworn to serve and to protect.”

Jean-Pierre also urged Congress to approve the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a sweeping legislation aimed to ban chokeholds and “qualified immunity” for law enforcement and create national standards for policing in attempts to improve accountability.

Updated

The Memphis fire department announced on Friday that it has received full access to the footage of Tyre Nichols.

In a Facebook post, the department said:

“As a result of the recent criminal investigation into the death of Mr Nichols, the Memphis fire department did not receive full access to the video footage until today. The department is currently reviewing the footage …”

The department added that it will be concluding its internal investigation early next week.

Two Memphis fire department employees that were involved in the initial care of Nichols were “relieved of duty” earlier this week. The department did not disclose whether the two individuals would eventually return to their duties.

Updated

Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis said on Friday that investigators of the Tyre Nichols case have not been able to “substantiate” the police officers’ reckless driving claim.

In an interview with NBC, Davis said:

“We have not been able to substantiate the cause of the stop, the violation. The only thing that we have right now is the officer saying that Mr Nichols was driving recklessly, initially on the wrong side of the road.

“My staff, I asked them to pull all of the video that they can find in the area … and we were unable to find that and we were unable to get that captured on body worn camera as well from the initial officer,” she added.

Updated

Acclaimed author and anti-racism activist Ibram X Kendi has condemned the beating and death of Tyre Nichols while criticizing police brutality on Friday.

In a statement on Twitter, Kendi wrote:

“Tyre Nichols should be with us skateboarding and looking up and admiring the sunset. But instead the sadistic scourge of police violence claimed its latest innocent victim.

“The history of the police is the racist history of violence. Cops of all races have been empowered and socialized to brutalize and terrorize and exploit and sexually assault and harass and lynch people, particularly Black people with near total impunity.

“There’s no reforming an inherently violent institution with a pervasively violent history. How many more Black people have to be brutally killed before we realize the obvious? How many more? How many more?”

Ibram X Kendi, director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research.
Ibram X Kendi, director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research. Photograph: Steven Senne/AP

Updated

Several groups are organizing rallies across the country tonight as Memphis police prepares to release footage of Tyre Nichols this evening.

According to the Instagram accounts of various chapters of the political party PSL, or Party for Socialism and Liberation, rallies titled “Justice for Tyre Nichols” are scheduled in major cities including New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Asheville and Chicago.

Meanwhile, the Youth Communist League is scheduled to host a rally in Philadelphia tonight.

Other rallies are set to be held in Dallas and Washington DC.

The White House has released more details of Joe Biden’s call with the family of Tyre Nichols.

“President Biden spoke with Mrs RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells, Tyre Nichols’ mother and stepfather, this afternoon to directly express his and Dr Biden’s condolences for Tyre Nichols’ death. During the conversation, the president commended the family’s courage and strength,” a readout of the call said.

The Guardian’s Maya Yang is now taking over this blog to cover the latest developments in this story.

Updated

Former vice-president Mike Pence said he takes “full responsibility” for the secret materials found at his residence, CNN reports:

Pence’s disclosure this week that documents dating from his time in the White House under Donald Trump were discovered in his Indiana home came after both Joe Biden and Trump were found to have similar materials in their possession. Attorney general Merrick Garland has appointed two special counsels to handle the investigations of the current and ex-presidents’ documents, but hasn’t done the same for Pence.

Updated

A network of racial justice activist groups is asking the public not to share footage of Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating at the hands of police, which is scheduled for release at 6 pm central time.

Here is the message from Movement for Black Lives:

Updated

Separately, the Republican National Committee re-elected Ronna McDaniel as its chair, overcoming concerns about her leadership after the party underperformed in last November’s midterm elections.

McDaniel’s main challenger was Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer for Donald Trump who handled his challenge to a subpoena from the January 6 committee. Conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and former congressman Lee Zeldin were also on the ballot, which McDaniel won easily:

Biden spoke with Tyre Nichols's parents

Joe Biden spoke with the parents of Tyre Nichols, according to the Washington Post.

The paper released a brief clip of the conversation, where the president mentions how Nichols’ father is “devastated” by the death of his son, and invokes his own experience of losing a child:

Earlier, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Biden had been briefed on the video of Nichols’ beating that will be released later today, but has not seen it:

Updated

From the Capitol, Punchbowl News reports Nancy Pelosi told journalists she will not be watching the video of the attack on her husband:

The top Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, reacted to the release of video showing the attack on Paul Pelosi.

Jeffries took over from Nancy Pelosi as the party’s leader in Congress’s lower chamber at the start of this year. Here’s what he had to say:

The violent attack on Paul Pelosi was unconscionable and his assailant must be brought to justice. We live in dangerous times of unprecedented extremism and political violence which have no place in our democracy or in the everyday lives of elected officials and their loved ones. The prayers of the Caucus, the Congress and the Country are with Paul, Speaker Emerita Pelosi and their wonderful family. May God watch over Paul in his continued recovery.

Interim summary

Hello US live blog readers, we are continuing to follow developments in the news relating to the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis after a fatal encounter with the police – and political reaction to that and related developments in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. Please stick around as we take you into the afternoon and evening, ahead of the release later tonight of police video of what’s described as a brutal police beating of Nichols.

Here’s where things stand:

  • Tyre Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said at a press conference in Memphis that ended a little bit ago that she has not been able to bring herself to watch the video of her son’s beating by five police officers earlier this month, following which he died in hospital, but she’s been told it’s “very horrific” and she urged carers not to let children watch it when police release footage tonight.

  • FBI director Christopher Wray said he was “appalled” by video of Nichols’s beating at the hands of Memphis police, and that the bureau has opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal incident.

  • Footage was released of the brutal hammer attack last year on Paul Pelosi, the husband of California congresswoman and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last October. A right-wing, allegedly politically-motivated intruder broke into their home in San Francisco, with the stated intent of kidnapping Nancy, who was in Washington, DC. Instead he found Paul and attacked him.

  • Joe Biden sent condolences to the family of Tyre Nichols in a statement released yesterday, while issuing a vague call for “meaningful reform” of policing, an issue on which he has had mixed success during the first two years of his presidency. The US president appealed for calm at protests that are expected in several cities tonight after the video of Nichols’s beating is released.

Updated

Footage of brutal attack on Paul Pelosi released

Police body-camera video was released on Friday afternoon of the brutal hammer attack last October on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic congresswomen and then House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The shocking footage shows officers arriving at the front door of the Pelosi residence in San Francisco and knocking loudly on the door.

Paul Pelosi opens the door and can be seen with an intruder as the two wrestle over a hammer. Police can be heard asking “What’s going on, man?”, then they tell the suspect to drop the hammer. But he says “Nope”, then manages to grab it and swing it and, just off camera, hits Pelosi in the head.

Police charge in to find Pelosi collapsed on the floor, unconscious and struggling to breathe, as they grapple with the suspect, who has fallen on the floor partially on top of Pelosi, then arrest him.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her husband Paul attend an event in the East Room hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to honor the Golden State Warriors for their 2022 NBA championship at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 17, 2023.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her husband Paul attend an event in the East Room hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to honor the Golden State Warriors for their 2022 NBA championship at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 17, 2023. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

Pelosi, 82, suffered a skull fracture and injuries to his hand and arm in the attack, requiring him to undergo surgery. He remained hospitalized for nearly a week as he recovered.

The video was released Friday, after a state judge dismissed efforts by the San Francisco district attorney’s office to keep the footage sealed from the public. The suspect in the attack, David Wayne DePape of Canada, faces state and federal criminal charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, among others. DePape has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

DePape’s comments to authorities in the wake of the attack indicated that his actions were politically motivated. In court testimony last month, a San Francisco police investigator recounted how DePape claimed there was “evil in Washington” and described his initial plans to kidnap the House speaker.

She was in Washington, DC, at the time and swiftly flew back to California to be with her husband.

Democrats performed better than expected last November’s midterm elections, but Republicans narrowly won control of the House of Representatives and, after a fraught election earlier this month at the start of the 118th Congress, California congressman Kevin McCarthy took over the speakership.

Pelosi had announced after the midterms that she would step down from her leadership role while continuing to represent her district in Washington, and she effectively handed the baton to New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, who became House minority leader in the new congress.

Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis explained that the decision to release the video of Tyre Nichols on Friday evening is to reduce the impact it may have on the surrounding communities and schools.

“Friday evening will be a good time to try to get people home, try to have our children safe and have a means of being able to manage any type of response,” Davis told NBC.

She added that police will be monitoring parts of Memphis and that they have increased their staffing.

“We don’t want to overreact. But the reality is, is that there are individuals that may want to exercise their First Amendment right and come out and protest,” she told the outlet.

Nichols's mother urges public not to let their children see video of beating

“My son is looking down smiling because, you know, it’s funny, he always said he was going to be famous one day. I didn’t know this was what he meant,” RowVaughn Wells, Tyre Nichols’s mother said.

“I‘ve never seen the video. But what I’ve heard is very horrific, very horrific. And any of you who have children, please don’t let them see it,” she added.

“To the five police officers that murdered my son, you also disgraced your own families when you did this but … I’m going to pray for you and your families, because at the end of the day, this shouldn’t have happened. This just shouldn’t have happened. We want justice for my son, justice for my son,” she added.

Updated

“We’re very satisfied with the charges,” said Tyre Nichols’s stepfather, Rodney Wells, referring to the second-degree murder charges against the five officers.

“More importantly, we want peace. We do not want any type of uproar, we do not want any type of disturbance. We want peaceful protests. That’s what the family wants, that’s what the community wants,” Wells said ahead of the planned protests across the country later today as the footage of Tyre Nichols gets released.

Updated

“We want to know, where are the unions? Where does the fraternal order of police unions stand on this? We want to hear…that you condemn the savagery…heinousness…brutality of this attack?” said Antonio Romanucci, one of the attorneys representing the family of Tyre Nichols.

Romanucci also called upon Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis to disband the specialized police unit known as the ‘Scorpion’ unit which the five police officers were a part of.

“The intent of the Scorpion unit has now been corrupted. It cannot be brought back to center with any sense of morality and dignity, and most importantly, trust in this community. How will the community ever, ever, trust a Scorpion unit?” he said.

Updated

Key event

“Officers have a duty to intervene in crimes being committed, even if it’s intervening with their own officers,” Crump said, calling for legislation to be passed which would require police officers to intervene when they see their colleagues exercising excessive force.

Updated

“We have never seen swift justice like this,” said Crump, referring to the five officers who have since been charged with murder.

“We want to proclaim that this is the blueprint going forward for any time any officers, whether they be Black or white, will be held accountable. No longer can you tell us we got to wait six months to a year,” he added.

“It is the culture that allows them to think that they can do this to Tyre,” Crump said, saying that it does not matter if the officers were Black, Hispanic or any other ethnicity.

“Call out the culture, call out the culture,” he said, as family members of Nichols chanted back.

“It is the institutionalized police culture that is on trial today,” he added.

Attorney Ben Crump is holding a press conference alongside Tyre Nichols’s family, where he has compared the swift indictment and arrest of five Black police officers for Nichols’s death to the comparatively slow response to other high-profile killings of Black men.

“This is not the first time that we saw police officers committing crime and engaging in excessive brutal force against Black people in America who were unarmed, but yet we have never seen swift justice like this,” Crump said.

You can watch the ongoing speech here:

Attorney general Merrick Garland said he was similarly distressed by Tyre Nichols’s death in Memphis.

“I have not seen the video but I have been briefed on that video. It is deeply disturbing, let me say horrific, from the descriptions I’ve been given,” Garland said. “I want to give my deepest condolences to Tyre Nichols’s family. I can’t imagine the feelings that parents must feel under these circumstances.”

He noted that the local US attorney has met with Nichols’s family to express his condolences, and that the justice department has “been working in support of the state and local law enforcement in this matter, and we will continue to do so.”

The attorney general also called for protests over the killing to remain peaceful.

“I want to repeat what the family has said, that expressions of concern, when people see this video, we urge that they be peaceful and nonviolent,” Garland said. “That’s what the family has urged. And that of course is what the justice department urges as well.”

FBI director 'appalled' by Nichols video, says civil rights investigation opened

FBI director Christopher Wray said he was “appalled” by video of Tyre Nichols’s beating at the hands of Memphis police, and that the bureau has opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal incident.

“What happened in Memphis is obviously tragic. I’ve seen the video myself and I will tell you I was appalled,” Wray said during a press conference. “I’m struggling to find a stronger word but I will just tell you I was appalled.”

He noted the FBI and justice department have opened an investigation into Nichols’s death under a statute governing police abuses, and “we’ll do it professionally without fear or favor by the book, as I think is expected of us”.

Here is Wray’s full comment:

Updated

Cities across the country are preparing for potential protests ahead of the release of the Tyre Nichols footage later today.

Memphis police are expected to release video of 29-year-old Nichols being beaten on 7 January by five police officers who have since been charged with murder following his death three days later.

“You are going to see acts that defy humanity. You’re going to see a disregard for life, duty of care that we are all sworn to,” Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis said about the video.

Police on Capitol Hill have been beefing up security ahead of the release. Politico reports that workers were seen on Thursday evening unloading bicycle-rack type fencing near the Capitol.

“The Metropolitan Police Department has fully activated all sworn personnel in preparation for possible First Amendment activities in the District of Columbia,” Fox News reports Capitol police as saying.

In Austin, police told the outlet they are currently monitoring events in Memphis and that its officers “will be moving into tactical alert status beginning Friday morning.”

A law enforcement source from the Los Angeles Police Department also told the outlet that it currently has units on standby.

Meanwhile, Atlanta police issued a statement saying that they are “closely monitoring the events in Memphis and are prepared to support peaceful protests in our city.”

“We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols… We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful,” they added.

Updated

Ben Crump, an attorney for the family of Tyre Nichols, warned in an interview with ABC News this morning of the graphic content of the video of the arrest.

“It is going to remind many people of Rodney King,” Crump said, referring to the motorist whose 1991 beating by Los Angeles police officers sparked unrest in the city. “Tragically, unlike Rodney King, Tyre doesn’t survive. It’s so difficult to watch the video because even while he’s being brutalized, you still see the humanity in Tyre, that he was a good kid. Even while the police are saying all kind of profane things to him, he’s still is answering in a calm voice. He’s like, ‘what did I do, and I just want to go home.’”

A specialists in civil rights and wrongful death lawsuits, Crump has represented the families of other Black Americans who died at the hands of police, including George Floyd and Michael Brown. Here’s Crump’s full interview with ABC:

NBC News reports that some of the officers charged in Tyre Nichols’s death were part of a unit created recently to address rising crime in Memphis, but which has faced questions over its tactics and its members’ level of experience.

Steve Mulroy, district attorney of Tennessee’s Shelby County, confirmed that members of Memphis police’s Scorpion unit were among those involved in Nichols death. The unit, whose name is an acronym meaning Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods, was created in 2021 to lower violent crime.

But according to NBC, police reform activists in the city remember it better for aggressive tactics that they likened to gang violence:

Chelsea Glass, an organizer with Decarcerate Memphis, which advocates for reform of the criminal justice system, said Scorpion was a “rebranding” of a common police tactic: a street crime-fighting team that relied on low-level traffic stops as pretexts to find violent criminals and weapons.

“They harass everyday residents, and they’re calling this high-level policing,” Glass said. “But it’s really just stop-and-frisk on wheels. It doesn’t matter what name you slap on it.”

Keedran Franklin, a Memphis community organizer, said Scorpion was like other specialized police units — including the county-run Multi-Agency Gang Unit — in that the officers seemed to stoke fear and distrust by the way they confronted people.

“The way they move in unmarked cars, looking like regular guys, bumping to rap music, they got on hoodies, they’re really looking the part, like they’re a part of the community, but they’re police,” Franklin said. “Then someone maybe slips up, smokes weed or doesn’t have their seat belt on or a headlight is out, and they jump out and stop them and want to go through their car.”

Only after the officers got out of their cars would people see “SCORPION” on the backs of their vests.

“They’re their own internal little gang,” Franklin added. “When they turn them loose on the streets, how does that affect ordinary citizens?”

Meanwhile, it appears that recently hired officers were placed on the unit, a consequence of an exodus of experienced police from the Memphis force that worried veteran cops:

Mark LeSure, a former Memphis police sergeant who retired in 2021, said he began to see a large number of relatively inexperienced officers’ being put on specialized units as a lot of the police force started leaving in recent years. Such units did not have enough senior staff members training the new officers, he said, adding that that was concerning to him.

“Rookies were getting put on specialized units where they had no business being,” he said.

The Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis and Richard Luscombe report that Memphis’s police chief has warned of the distressing content in the video of the police stop of Tyre Nichols, which is expected to be released this evening:

The chief of the Memphis police warned on Friday morning that the video of officers beating Tyre Nichols is “perhaps worse” than the infamous footage of Rodney King being attacked by police in Los Angeles more than 30 years ago.

The police department intends to release the video to the public on Friday evening.

In her first interview since five officers were charged with murder on Thursday, police chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis told CNN that she was “outraged” after seeing the “alarming” video of the traffic stop of Nichols, 27, who died three days after a 7 January apprehension spiraled into a fatal physical attack.

Davis said there appeared to be no legitimate reason for the traffic stop, and that she did not see any of the five officers intervene to stop excessive force by their fellow officers, saying they appeared to be in a state of “groupthink” as they confronted Nichols and became violent.

“I was in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident and it’s very much aligned with that type of behavior … sort of groupthink. I would say it’s about the same if not worse,” Davis said in a live interview on Friday morning.

Biden calls for 'meaningful reforms' after Tyre Nichols death

Joe Biden sent condolences to the family of Tyre Nichols in a statement released yesterday, while issuing a vague call for “meaningful reform” of policing, an issue on which he has had mixed success during the first two years of his presidency.

“Jill and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of Tyre Nichols and the entire Memphis community. Tyre’s family deserves a swift, full, and transparent investigation into his death,” Biden said.

“As Americans grieve, the Department of Justice conducts its investigation, and state authorities continue their work, I join Tyre’s family in calling for peaceful protest. Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable. Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice.”

He also noted “the fact that fatal encounters with law enforcement have disparately impacted Black and Brown people.” Nichols was Black, as were the five officers charged with murder following his death.

“To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths, and we need to build lasting trust between law enforcement, the vast majority of whom wear the badge honorably, and the communities they are sworn to serve and protect,” Biden said. He pointed to his failed effort to see the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed, which led him to last year sign an executive order intended to increase police accountability.

The president didn’t call for any specific action following Nichols death, instead closing his statement with, “Today, we all must re-commit ourselves to the critical work that must be done to advance meaningful reforms.”

Joe Biden pulled off several unlikely legislative victories in Congress over the past two years, but one goal that eluded him was reforming the police.

Elected months after the death of George Floyd in 2020, Biden rejected many activists’ calls to defund the police, but encouraged lawmakers to pass legislation that would ban officers from using chokeholds and better document police officers’ use of force. But despite lengthy negotiations between Democrats and Republicans, the bill went nowhere, forcing Biden to turn to less-impactful executive orders to accomplish his criminal justice priorities.

Late last year, the Guardian’s Oliver Laughland took a look at the state of criminal justice reform nationwide, and found a mixed record:

Instead, throughout the midterm election season, Republicans fell back on the “tough on crime” rhetoric that has supported America’s mass incarceration crisis for decades.

Progressive officials at the local level, including reformist district attorneys such as Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Andrew Warren in Tampa, Florida, have seen themselves directly targeted as a result of this regression to the hard right.

In Florida, the far-right governor, Ron DeSantis, suspended Warren for his refusal to enforce the state’s hardline anti-abortion laws. In Philadelphia, Krasner faces a Republican-led impeachment process in the state legislature, accused of contributing to the city’s increasing gun violence because of progressive reforms. (Krasner has labeled the process unconstitutional, and academic research has concluded there is no evidence to link reformist prosecutors with rising violent crime.)

Biden’s statement released in the wake of Tyre Nichols’s killing and the arrest of five officers involved noted his executive orders, and Congress’s failure to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, as the broad police reform was known. In a sign of how the political winds have shifted on the issue, it did not call on lawmakers to act again.

Biden calls for calm ahead of release of Tyre Nichols beating video

Good morning, US politics blog readers. This evening, police in Memphis will release video of Tyre Nichols being beaten to death by five officers who were yesterday charged with murder. Amid fears the footage could raise tensions over policing and racial justice nationwide, Joe Biden yesterday called for “peaceful protest” and condemned acts of violence. At the Capitol, police are reportedly increasing security to get ahead of potential unrest. The president spent much of the last two years encouraging lawmakers to pass a bill that would have reformed policing with the aim of stopping such killings, but the effort ultimately failed. We’ll see if such legislation gets renewed momentum amid the outrage over Nichols’ death.

Here’s what else is happening today:

  • The GOP is convening in California to elect a new chair of the Republican National Committee, with incumbent Ronna McDaniel facing challenges from Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Lindell. Some in the party, most notable the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, have said it’s time for change at the top of the GOP after it underperformed in two consecutive elections.

  • The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, will brief reporters at 2pm.

  • The House of Representatives has convened and will consider a bill to restrict the president’s ability to withdraw oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve unless there is an increase in the percentage of federal land from which oil and gas is being produced. Biden and the Democrats oppose the measure.

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