Death of Tyre Nichols revives calls in Congress for policing reforms

After officials in Memphis released graphic footage Friday depicting the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, by the hands of police, members of Congress said Sunday they should revive their effort to pass substantial police reforms.

The five officers involved within the deadly encounter were charged with murder, kidnapping, assault and other charges on Thursday. All five officers were dismissed from the police department, and the specialized policing unit they were an element of was disbanded Saturday.

Police reform talks fell apart in Congress in 2021 after lawmakers did not strike a bipartisan deal. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Unwell., said Sunday that while passing those reforms could be “the best place to begin,” it’s ultimately “not enough.”

Durbin said that while he knows law enforcement officers risk their lives for Americans daily, lots of these same officers are engaging in “horrible conduct” that should be modified for the higher.

“What we saw on the streets of Memphis was just inhumane, horrible,” he told ABC’s “This Week.” “I do not know what created this rage in these law enforcement officials that they’d congratulate themselves for beating a person to death. But that’s literally what happened.”

Durbin added that he wouldn’t rule out a federal investigation into the complete Memphis Police Department following Nichols’ death.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said he thinks that while there may be reform that may occur, no amount of legislature could account for the “evil” and “lack of respect for human life” that he saw within the footage. He said he doesn’t imagine those five officers represent the overwhelming majority of law enforcement.

“We’ll take a look at what we predict is sensible to assist this, to make sure that they’ve the correct training, but no amount of coaching goes to alter what we saw in that video,” Jordan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.

Some policing reforms were already in place in Memphis on the time of Nichols’ death, including a requirement for officers to de-escalate situations where they saw others using excessive force. Ben Crump, the attorney representing Nichols’ family, said Sunday he thinks the culture of policing is guilty, because it has normalized the use of maximum force.

“Just as much those officers are accountable for the death of Tyre Nichols, so is the implicit bias police culture that exists in America,” Crump told ABC’s “This Week.”

Crump said he thinks this culture will only begin to alter if federal police reforms are implemented. Without them, he said, “We will proceed to see these hashtags proliferate.”

While reforms and training can have an effect, one other effective deterrent to this behavior is when officers across the country see what’s going to occur to them in the event that they engage in this sort of violence, said Jason Armstrong, former Ferguson, Missouri, police chief. Armstrong led the Ferguson police force after it was overhauled following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014.

Armstrong said for the reason that five officers were fired and charged, officers are seeing that this behavior just isn’t going to be tolerated. He said for some officers, it doesn’t matter in the event that they are wearing body cameras or if there are witnesses, they’re still going to resort to violence and that culture is what must be rooted out.

“Unfortunately, violence is what was natural for these individuals on this instance,” Armstrong told ABC’s “This Week” Sunday. “And that is where we’ve to do a greater job as law enforcement leaders, is identifying these individuals which might be inside our organizations and our police departments and getting them out of the career before something like this happens.”