Former president Trump on Saturday decried the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, saying that the violent confrontation “should have never happened.”
“I thought it was terrible,” Trump told the Associated Press on Saturday. “He was in such trouble. He was just being pummeled. Now that should never have happened.”
On Thursday, five cops were indicted in the killing of Tyre Nichols, who was allegedly stopped for reckless driving and subsequently beaten by the officers on January 7. He died three days later.
Body-camera footage of the altercation released Friday revealed a protracted struggle with law enforcement to get Nichols’s hands behind his back to handcuff him. While Nichols was pinned to the ground. the cops appeared to hit Nichols while he was being held by others. He yelled “Mom” repeatedly. One officer pepper-sprayed Nichols in the face while he lay on the concrete. The injuries resulted in the man’s hospitalization and subsequent death.
Trump’s remarks came during an event in South Carolina for his third presidential campaign. Former president Obama and first lady Michelle Obama condemned the episode as an example of how the policing system has failed.
“The vicious, unjustified beating of Tyre Nichols and his ultimate death at the hands of five Memphis police officers is just the latest, painful reminder of how far America still has to go in fixing how we police our streets,” they tweeted Saturday.
The police department fired officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith after the episode, citing their alleged violation of department policies during the skirmish with Nichols.
A Democratic freshman congressman deleted a tweet posted Friday that attributed Nichols’s killing to”white supremacy,” even though all of the police officers who were involved are African-American. Nichols is also black.
“Doesn’t matter what color those police officers are,” Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost wrote Friday before taking down the tweet later. “The murder of Tyre Nichols is anti-Black and the result of white supremacy.”