Monitoring Desk
MEMPHIS: After the death of US blackman Tyre Nichols in police custody, the victim’s family lawyer has urged the US Congress to swiftly pass legislation aimed at police reforms.
Five police officers fatally beat Nichols, 29, to death in January.
Police reforms in the USA
In a statement to the US media, lawyers Ben Crump encouraged President Joe Biden to use Nichols’s passing to endorse the pending “George Floyd Justice in Policing Act”.
He said that Nichols’ mother was coping with her son’s death by thinking that it (the passage of the legislation) would bring about change. Ben Crump stated that she has a deep-seated belief that Tyre was brought here on a purpose and that this tragedy will ultimately lead to the greater good.
After Floyd was killed by a white police officer who had been kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, “the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act” was introduced in 2021.
His death caused protests around the world. The proposed legislation would prohibit police from using chokeholds and make it simpler to file charges against violating officers.
The law was passed by the House of Representatives in March 2021 while it was still under Democratic Party control, but it was later delayed in the Senate by the opposition. Crump declared that it would be shameful if we didn’t use Floyd’s terrible death to ultimately pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP civil rights organization, also urged lawmakers to act.
According to him, failing to pass legislation equals writing another obituary. He claimed that while we could list every victim of police brutality, you had failed to pass a single law to address the issue. Jim Jordan, the Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, cautioned lawmakers against rushing through legislation.
The so-called Scorpion special unit of the Memphis Police Department, of which the officers now accused of murder were members, was disbanded on Saturday. The unit, which consisted of 50 people, was tasked with reducing crime, primarily auto theft and gang-related offenses.
The Scorpion team was established, according to Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis, to be “more responsive” and “more proactive” to gun crime in the city. She did, however, admit that the officers responsible for Tyre Nichols’ brutal beat “decided to go off the rails.”
Two deputy sheriffs who “came on the scene following” the incident, according to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr., have also been suspended pending an internal inquiry.
