The household of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died after being violently overwhelmed by Memphis law enforcement officials, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in opposition to police within the US metropolis, attorneys for his household stated Wednesday.
Nichols’ January battering, captured on digicam, sparked protests throughout the US about police brutality. The 5 officers implicated in beating Nichols — who died within the hospital three days later — are additionally Black.
“The savage beating of Tyre Nichols was the direct and foreseeable product of the unconstitutional insurance policies, practices, customs, and selections” of town of Memphis, in Tennessee, and its police chief, Cerelyn Davis, the attorneys for the household stated in a press release.
The lawsuit is in search of $550 million in damages, an quantity chosen “to ship the message to different cities which have comparable insurance policies that say it is okay to terrorize Black individuals in Black and brown communities,” lawyer Ben Crump stated at a information convention.
The quantity can also be a reference to civil rights chief Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated 55 years in the past this month.
Nichols was pulled over on January 7 by a Memphis particular police unit throughout a visitors cease, and was brutally overwhelmed after he ran.
Within the aftermath, the officers had been fired, and face separate prison expenses.
By early March, greater than a dozen metropolis police and fireplace division staff had been dealing with expenses associated to Nichols’ beating, broadcaster NBC reported.
Outrage round Nichols’ dying swept the nation, spurring a name to the household by President Joe Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris attended Nichols’ funeral.
