ACQUITTED KILLER COPS 'A BUNCH OF VAGABONDS'

'To protect and to serve.'

That's the motto supposedly motivating US police officers. However, protection and service are rare for Black people in their encounters with law enforcement. Sadly, even when the police officers themselves are Black.

The tragic case of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, who died three days after five Black police officers savagely beat him on the night of 7 January 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee, is an example of aggressive policing targeting minorities, a throwback to the days of slave patrols. Memphis is a city of 62.9 per cent Black people.

Ted Golden, a former Memphis police officer, told Court TV (@CourtTV on X) there was nothing 'standard' in how the officers handled Nichols’ alleged traffic violation. However, they were members of the now-disbanded SCORPION Unit, a 40-officer team known for violent tactics, as its acronym suggests. On 7 May, a jury acquitted three out of five officers of all charges related to the beating. The other two officers took plea deals.

Further, that the officers were Black raises questions about the value of efforts to diversify police forces. Despite the Memphis police force being more than 50 per cent Black and the police chief being a Black woman, the US Department of Justice announced in December 2024 that its investigation found that the department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.

Such violence harks back to when white masters suppressed slave uprisings using Black overseers and white slave patrols, from which modern US police forces grew. Plus, the notion that a Black person is up to mischief informs pretextual traffic stops, allowing officers to stop motorists for minor infractions and then search for other violations. The Memphis city council passed an ordinance in honour of Nichols in 2023 limiting pretextual stops, but the Tennessee legislature repealed it.

This scenario reminds us that only a fully authentic decolonial revolution in the US will allow the country to transform and heal from its societal ills.

Video credit: @CourtTV (X)

Sources

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/07/nx-s1-5388488/three-memphis-police-officers-found-not-guilty-in-the-death-of-tyre-nichols

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2025/05/08/memphis-police-reform-tyre-nichols/78991473007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p