Tyre Nichols Vids

There are four, three from the former officers' body cams, and one where you can see the terminal incident best from a pole cam. The videos start with the stop of Mr. Nichols' car in the middle of a multi-lane highway. The former cops grab him out of his vehicle. There is no reason, such as a car chase, from the vids for the stop. The body cam footage begins with one former cop pulling Nichols out of his car. Nichols can be heard saying "I didn't do anything wrong" as he's surrounded and grabbed by three or four former cops who order him to the ground. "Okay, okay!" Nichols can be heard saying. He seems genuinely mystified as to the reason for all of this. "You guys are really doing a lot right now," he says. One former cop tases Nichols and one pepper sprays him right in the face. The biggest, most heavyset former cop, who does most of the direct sadism, catches some pepper spray in his eyes and in another body cam vid a fellow officer, a white man, repeatedly flushes the Black, heavyset sadist's eyes out. The encounter happens at around 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 7. Somehow after the initial round of roughing up, tasing and pepper spraying Mr. Nichols is able to break free! Oh, he is heard to yell for his "Mom! Mom!" a few times on the first body cam vid. He was ~100 yards from her home at some time. Anyway, Mr. Nichols takes off running, a couple of officers, one Black, the other, the white cop, give chase but halt out of breath. The pole cam--I didn't know those things could be swung--is on the corner of Castlegate Lane and Something in a residential neighborhood. The pole cam begins at 8:32. The pole camera initially is pointing in the opposite direction down Castlegate Lane. When a pale blue light from a police vehicle shines on a stack of boxes by the curb the pole cam is swung in the opposite direction and is directly across narrow, residential Castlegate. My point in mentioning the swing of the pole cam is that it clearly is being manually directed by a human. That is, a person, in the control room or whatever, actually sees this happen. I don't know if the operator immediately notified superiors. When the pole cam swings into position it offers a bird's eye vantage of the beating and Mr. Nichols is on the ground surrounded by three former cops standing over him. This is the portion of the videos that has drawn apt, eerie comparisons to the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1991. Same eerie light too, this time though, in color. The police are handcuffing Mr. Nichols as he lies, it appears, face down on the corner. It's dark out and the pole cam does not have zoom capability. It appears he is face down. Then the former cops get him up! Mr. Nichols is clearly handcuffed behind his back and is lifted to a sitting position, then they stand him up! The sadism begins as he sits and continues as they have him upright. I have watched this part twice and I think they got him standing just so that they could punch him in the head. I think this because Mr. Nichols was on the ground, then picked up, then sadistically beaten then laid back down on the street again. In both the sitting and standing positions I counted three kicks to the head, all by the same heavyset cop who, I think was the one who got pepper-sprayed earlier, and one knee, maybe to the head, I could not tell, and maybe by the same heavyset cop; three baton strikes by a white skin-headed officer, one of which interrupts big fat Black cop's attempt at another kick; and then when they have Mr. Nichols standing (held up by the other cops) six punches directly to the head and face. Mr. Nichols is totally defenseless, his hands are cuffed behind his back and his head completely unprotected. The big, fat, Black cop delivers most of the punches and he takes aim at Nichols' head, winds up and punches. Nichols' head can be seen to jerk to the side from the force of two of the punches. Another punch by the big, fat, Black cop is an uppercut to the head. Thirteen combined kicks, baton strikes, punches to a defenseless man who is handcuffed, in custody and controlled by the police. Not that anything would justify it, but for what? It is entirely unclear why the police stopped the Nichols vehicle in the first place and the Police Chief has said she can find no reason for the stop. I do not think that there will be riots from this. Why do I think not? I don't know. I haven't heard any police sirens in Miami Beach is one reason, I guess. But I have not checked the news while typing this post.