1/29/23

By Aditi Jha

Over the weekend, there have been several protests in cities including New York City, Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, following the release of a video that showed the January 7th police beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man in Memphis. Officers repeatedly threatened Nichols with violence even while he was already on the ground and agreeing to their demands. He was in a critical condition for 23 minutes without receiving help. Former New York police Lt. Darrin Porcher said, "No one is doing anything to help him. It goes back to the failure to act, the failure to care, and the overall obliviousness of the officers that are just standing around." It reflected an ongoing medical bias; studies from the American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that Black patients are 40 percent less likely than white people to be prescribed medication to ease the hurt from acute pain. It's a part of Memphis Police Department policies that any police officer "who directly observes another member engaged in dangerous or criminal conduct or abuse of a subject shall take reasonable action to intervene," but no officer intervened or tried to stop the violence. Five officers were fired and charged with second-degree murder among other charges, though at least eight officers were involved. A study from Harvard University reports that black people are over three times more likely than white people to be shot and killed by police officers, and that of the 1,100 people killed by police last year, over a quarter were Black despite Black people representing only 13 percent of the population. Later on Saturday, Democratic Representatives G.A. Hardaway and Joe Towns Jr. said that they would file police reform legislation in the state House. Even though Democrats have the minority, Towns said that it's not a partisan issue. "You would be hard-pressed to look at this footage and see what happened to that young man, okay, and not want to do something," he said. Meanwhile national police reform legislation may be passed as well. US Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the Senate judiciary committee said that Congress must revive the police reform legislation. "It's the right starting point," he said, "Sen. (Cory) Booker, chairman of the crime subcommittee, has been working on this for years. I think he and Sen (Tim) Scott should sit down again quickly to see if we can revive that effort, but that in and of itself is not enough. We need a national conversation about policing in a responsible, constitutional, and humane way." 

That's the news for today! Stay safe!