“Rodney King survived. Tyre didn’t”: STL NAACP briefed by FBI in response to Memphis police fatal beating of Tyre Nichols
By Melanie Johnson
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ST. LOUIS (KMOV) — The FBI reached out to NAACP chapters including the one is St. Louis on Friday. The briefing came ahead of the graphic video that showed deadly police brutality by Memphis police. Federal authorities alerted the organization of what to expect from the body camera footage and encouraged peaceful protesting.
“This video is going to wake up a lot of people in ways that no other one has,” says St. Louis NAACP President, Adolphus Pruitt. “As grim and graphic as what we saw with Rodney King but worse. Rodney King survived. Tyre didn’t.”
The newly released video shows, 29-year-old, Tyre Nichols, fatally attacked by 5 Memphis police officers.
Police are seen punching, kicking and hitting Nichols with a baton.
Chants for change were heard outside St. Louis Headquarters following the video being made public.
“I would expect that out of 5 police officers on the scene at least one of them would have had the forethought to stop it to prevent this from happening regardless of race,” says Pruitt. ”Our job is to make sure that something like that doesn’t happen here.”
New Horizon Christian Church, Pastor B.T. Rice, was in Memphis days before the fatal encounter.
“The problem is the police culture that make them think or feel like they are above the regular society. The regular people,” Pastor BT Rice says. “It could be your son, it could be mine.”
“Only thing that I know that could come close to some of these sentiments are the images of when police was pulling out dogs on Black protestors during the King era,” says Pruitt.
The St. Louis NAACP tells News 4 they are on standby and ready to assist the Memphis chapter if needed.
“A loss of life by those who swear to protect and serve it’s just mind boggling.”
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