February 6, 2023

For years, the profession of police officer had always been, in my mind, associated with a historic photo of a towering, gun-carrying young policeman bending over and chatting with a little boy not much taller than his knee during a parade in 1957 in Washington, D.C.

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But things have changed rather drastically.

The images of the police force have become more and more colorful and multi-dimensional, replacing the conventional stereotype: brave, law-abiding, and trustworthy.

The events involving police actions in recent years illustrate these changes, and the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of police, following a seemingly standard traffic stop in early January is revealing a chain of failure in the police profession. These failures, unfortunately, seem to have become common now, more than sporadic.

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From the video clips released by Memphis police department, upon the request of Nichols family through their attorneys, one can see the unfolding of the brutal beating delivered by five uniformed police officers to Nichols, the victim of this police violence. Nichols died three days later of “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating.” The Nichols family’s attorney, Antonio Romanucci, described the actions captured in the video as not only “violent, it was savage.”

After the death of Nichols, the Memphis police department and the county sheriff’s office took a series of actions in the midst of the ongoing internal and federal investigations. The five officers captured in the beating videos were quickly fired and charged. Two deputy sheriffs on the scene of arrest were relieved from duty days later. A sixth officer was fired after that. And the police unit to which those officers were assigned was abruptly disbanded.

These actions, however swift, would be of no good to either achieving justice for Nichols and his family or preventing future police crimes in Memphis and elsewhere, if the ongoing investigations conclude by only punishing the individuals who literally carried out the brutality without pressing the questions underneath — that of the disturbing police culture that has been obvious for years.

Then, what are the questions that must be asked and hopefully answered?

Common sense tells that, those five officers charged in Nichols’ death did not become killer police overnight. One of the five, Demetrius Haley, in fact, had been sued for beating a prison inmate while employed as a correction officer at the Shelby County Corrections Department in 2015.

Thus, the first and most obvious question directed to the Memphis police department is: Did the department have any knowledge of those five officers’ violent tendencies before and after their hiring? What precautions had been given to their violent tendencies in the process of their hiring and job assignments?