What Happened to Tyre Nichols?

What Happened to Tyre Nichols?

Bradley Akin, Journalist

Tyre Nichols was born June 5, 1993, in Memphis Tennessee, and was only 29 years old when he died on January 10, 2023. For Nichols, it was just a normal day when he was on his way home from FedEx when police officers decided to initiate a traffic stop. During his traffic stop, Nichols was asked to get out of the car, while also complying with anything he was requested to do. The officers began to get forceful after Nichols calmly made the statement that they were being too aggressive. Though he was allegedly pulled over for reckless driving, cops had no plausible reason to have him step out of the vehicle. Nichols eventually felt that he needed to run so that’s what he did but they caught him. Later found on body cam footage, officers had preceded to hold him up while the others struck him many times to the face and torso. Bodycam then shows Tyre Nichols falling to his knees while officers beat, kick, and pepper sprays him. You can hear faint cries from the man as well as hear him crying out for his mom. Eventually, Nichols gets taken and leaned up against a police car until the ambulances were able. Afterward, he complained about shortness of breath and was transported to Memphis’ St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. This took place on January 7 but he later died on January 10 in the hospital. 

After an investigation was opened up, six cops were fired on January 20 for the following felonies: second-degree murder, aggravated assault, and aggravated kidnapping. The case was not fully closed yet because of the investigation of the EMS workers also. Emergency Medical Services are trained to respond by checking their patient’s airways, breathing, vital signs, etc. but in this case, they didn’t. Actually, the EMTs did nothing clinically for the first 19 minutes, not even the bare minimum of assessing their patient. Now they have been fired and charged with second-degree murder as well as having their medical licenses revoked. This is genuinely a heart-breaking case and we can only hope that nothing like this will ever happen to anyone or their family again.