“Tyre Nichols = Rodney King, Part 2,” concluded Nichols family attorney Ben Crump.
The release of video footage capturing the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Tennessee has sparked comparisons to decades-old footage of Rodney King being brutally beaten by police in California.
Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, died after being severely beaten by five officers following a traffic stop in Memphis on January 7. The officers were all fired from the Memphis Police Department and on Thursday were charged with multiple felonies, including second-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping.
The death of Nichols was met with outrage, with many characterizing it as the latest in a seemingly unending series of incidents involving police brutality directed at young Black men. The disgust reached new levels after police released pole and body-cam footage of the incident on Friday night.
Comparisons were quickly made between the Nichols footage and a bystander’s recording of the 1991 beating of King, which inspired widespread outrage after being aired on television at the time and indirectly led to the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.
“The camera shot from the light pole looks eerily reminiscent of the Rodney King video,” journalist Jay Scott Smith tweeted. “The multiple kicks, the nightstick, the knee to the back, holding him up and punching him. Then dragging him to the car and just leaving him. Good grief. This is horrendous.
