After what was done to Tyre Nichols, is there any good solution?

"I’ll knock your [expletive] the [expletive] out.” This is typical of what you would hear at a bar fight or in an MMA match, but it should be frightening to hear this come from those whose job is to protect and serve a community.

What happened to Tyre Nichols was more than just a case of bad policing. It was a show of savagery. 

If you haven’t watched the horrific video of Nichols’ encounter with the police, I am warning you, don’t watch it, it is truly inhumane. If you were to watch it, you would find five cops disgracing their positions and acting as if they were the true thugs in this situation. These videos show one officer placekicking Nichols in the face, not once but twice. Another cop swatted Nichols at least three times with a baton in the upper body area. More police officers would join in, taking things way too far by punching him in the face as well as sneaking in a few more blows and kicks to the upper body and abdomen. After the altercation, one officer can be heard referring to the incident in a joking manner by saying, “That [expletive] was fun” and later seen on camera fist-bumping each other as if they had just achieved something celebratory-worthy. 

As soon as this story broke, the narratives followed along with the outrage. Aside from the typical extremes that both sides will take on this situation, I believe those who have the “Well you shouldn’t have been resisting arrest” mindset, are really failing to see what the underlying problem is. Memphis police gave Nichols dozens of contradictory orders and then beat him more for resisting, while he was trying to comply with those orders. Per a New York Times analysis, it was found that the five officers shouted at least 71 commands during the nearly 13-minute period before they reported Nichols being in custody. A vast amount of these orders were often simultaneous and contradictory, and it seemed as if Nichols was receiving a military-style wake up call by how sudden and impossible these orders were to follow. Officers demanded that Nichols show his hands even, despite the fact that they (the cops) were holding his hands. They told him to get on the ground, when he was already on the ground. Lastly, they ordered him to reposition himself even though the police had full control of his body. 

Read that again, and tell me who is at fault. What was Nichols supposed to do in this situation?  

The police didn’t give a reason for dragging Nichols out of the car, rather they simply steer-wrestled him out and began to take turns beating the life out of him. Put yourself in his shoes: If you were getting dragged out of your car without any justifiable reason, and then viciously beaten, would you not try to avoid getting your teeth kicked in? At that point, human instinct takes over. So yes, while it may be “resisting” (even though any rational human would clearly see that its not), I would argue that Nichols’ resisting was a last ditch effort to save his own life, because those ruthless cops were hell-bent on taking it. Feel as you please about policing, but resisting arrest has never been, and never will be, grounds for taking someone’s life. Period. 

As I reflect on this, I find myself arriving back the same question that I’m sure other American’s have: Where do we go from here? Some hard conservative pundits have already brushed this off and twisted this incident into being Nichols’ fault. Whilst on the other end, hard progressives have re-ignited the calls for defunding, and in some cases, abolishing the police. However as previously alluded, both the “stop resisting” and “do away with the police” arguments completely miss the point on this issue. The biggest issue in this situation is that these tragic events seem to carry the circular trend. That being the incident occurs, outrage ensues, and then Congress tries to stop the bleeding with the faulty “reform” bandage. But somewhere along the way, everything suddenly dies down. 

All of these “reform” bills and procedures that have been hailed to produce safer police interactions failed miserably in this instance. There is more diversity in the police departments around the county, weapons have been made less deadly, body cameras are everywhere, but still all of these reformative actions weren’t enough to spare Nichols’ life. Reform still hasn’t stopped bad cops from doing evil, just as gun control has never stopped crime and gangs in the dangerous neighborhoods of America. I hold steadfastly to the idea that preventing crime is done through building a trusting relationship between the police and the community. It is not done by adding fuel to the fire of a broken police department. Deep down, I think every non-police officer and average citizen has their idea of how policing should occur. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that people want cops that are a reliable safety net and not an overbearing authoritarian function. But, it seems those two still haven’t been separated at this moment in time.