A funeral for Tyre Nichols is underway in Memphis, more than three weeks after the 29-year-old Black man was fatally beaten by a group of police officers on 7 January. He died in hospital three days later.
Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the congregation at at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, where Rev Al Sharpton also delivered the eulogy and prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump issued a “call to action” in the wake of Nichols’s death and the police killings of Black Americans.
Rev Sharpton condemned the actions of the Black officers who are charged with Nichols’s murder, arguing that the sacrifies of civil rights leaders like Dr Martin Luther King Jr paved the way for their public service.
“People had to march and go to jail and some people lost their lives to open the doors for you. How dare you act like that sacrifice was for nothing?” he said.
City officials released the prior disciplinary records for the five officers who are now charged with murder, revealing that four of them had prior complaints against them.
