It Hurts More Because it’s “Brothas” Who Did It
Fired and indicted former Memphis police officers (from left to right) Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean forgot their own history and the tragedies suffered by their ancestors when interacting with Tyree Nichols, who died at their hands.
“Am I my brothers keeper…?” It is a question the Black community is asking themselves after the release of the video showing the beating death of Tyree Nichols at the hands of five African American Memphis police officers earlier this month. Incidents of citizens being unjustly brutalized and killed by police officers is never easy to watch. As terrible as the Derrick Chauvin video was seeing him casually smirk with his knee on George Floyd’s neck, slowly suffocating him, this one was just as bad. While Chauvin’s killing of Floyd was inhumane in its own right, the brutality used by former officers Taddarius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith in taking Nichols life might have been more difficult to watch in the eyes of some. The commonalities in the methods used to kill Floyd and Nichols doesn’t just stop with the violence. It is that it happened in front of other human beings who thought the behavior was okay. It is the fact that both of the victims were crying out for their mothers as they were helpless. It is the casualness with which their torturers implemented their violence with cameras knowing rolling. It is the uncaring, tepid response to provide medical care after the punishment they dished out stopped.
If you can’t handle people running away from you when you try to stop them, don’t become a cop. If you can’t handle getting cursed out, then don’t become a cop. If you can’t handle people taking a swing at you, then don’t become a cop. And yes, if you can’t handle people shooting at you then don’t go into law enforcement. Because all of these things I just mentioned are likely going to happen to you at some point during your career and you are going to have to be able to handle your emotions and actions in a professional way.
For the most part, police officers are trained to be professional and follow the rule of law while in their taxpayer-funded academies. It is the training they receive in their first year on the streets, or as every police officer I know has told me, “the real training” that leads to the brutality we see perpetrated by officers of all races and genders. Cop culture is the main problem and trying to change a culture that has been glamorized on TV and movies for decades is nearly impossible. Hollywood has normalized illegal bad cop behavior so much that I’m often told by police trainers that most of the job in the first few weeks at the academy with recruits is trying to get them to understand that much of what they see on TV and in film about what a police officer can and cannot do is completely false.
Which leads us back to the senseless death of Mr. Nichols. These five now indicted officers didn’t think about what they were doing to another Blackman who is the same victim of racism as they are. They didn’t see the father to a Black child that will now grow up without their father. They didn’t see a Blackman who lived in the same community they did that they were responsible for protecting. They failed to see their horrific, inhumane actions were similar to the indignities the ancestors of all parties involved suffered. All pain isn’t the same. This one stung a bit more. Hurt my soul a bit more. Because this one was a betrayal.
Ironically I was struck by the last names of two of the accused officers: Mills Jr. and Martin III. That means their parents thought enough of them when they were born to honor them with the names of their father respectively to continue their family legacies.
Too bad Tyree Nichols didn’t get the same consideration from these individuals in return.