NCRM Assembles a Panel to Discuss Police Violence and Accountability

MSNBC’s Joy Reid (center) moderates a panel discussion on police
violence and accountability on March 30 at the National Civil Rights 
Museum, which includes panelists Cheryl Dorsey (left) and Atty. 
Benjamin Crump. (Photos by Wiley Henry) 

Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (right) holds court with 
the parents of Tyre Nichols, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, after
the panel discussion. They joined the panel as well.

MEMPHIS, TN – The tragic death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers provided the impetus for a panel discussion on overzealous policing and accountability on March 30 at the National Civil Rights Museum. 

Moderated by MSNBC’s Joy Reid, a political analyst, and the host of “The Reid Out,” the panelists kicked off the first of a four-part national convening entitled “The Reckoning, The Resolve, The Restoration, and The Resilience.” 

Panelists Benjamin Crump, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, Cheryl Dorsey, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and Alex S. Vitale addressed “The Reckoning,” a focus on community policing and accountability.

“Historically, we’ve seen victims of violence by law enforcement, not only Rodney King and George Floyd, but here in Memphis – from Larry Payne to Elton Hayes to Tyre Nichols,” said NCRM President Dr. Russ Wigginton at the apex of the panel discussion. 

“It is a longstanding legacy of abuse and injustice,” he said, adding, “We’re seeking solutions to ridding society of injustice today.”

“We can talk about this issue in theory. You have to live it in fact,” said Reid, referring to RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, and asked: “What does reform look like to you?”

“Police officers should treat people as equals,” said RowVaughn Wells, noting that too many Black and brown people are being murdered by police officers. “I’m not understanding why this keeps happening.”

Rodney Wells sees the problem as a lack of accountability. “The police officers, whether they’re Black, brown, green or yellow, need to be held accountable for their actions,” he said.

He added that too many parents in America are going through the same thing that his family is going through – such as losing a loved one to police violence. 

“We don’t need immunity for officers when they’re doing something wrong,” Rodney Wells said.

A grand jury indicted the five Black officers on multiple charges in the death of Tyre Nichols, including second degree murder. The MPD responded swiftly and fired the officers.

“That tells us that there is something deeply and systemically wrong,” Reid said. “It’s not just about hiring more Black officers.”

Vitale recalled the police-involved shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 as a point of reference.

“We’ve tried a lot of things,” he said. “Those officers…a lot of them had body cameras. They’ve had the diversity hiring. They’ve had the special training.” 

It hasn’t made a difference, said Vitale, a noted professor who spent more than 30 years writing about policing and consulting police departments and human rights organizations internationally.

Is there a certain militarization of police departments, even though more Black officers are among the ranks?

“Certainly, there’s a militarization of police departments,” said Dorsey, a retired Los Angeles Police Department sergeant, author, and human rights activist. “There are 18,000 police departments across the country, and they move and act similarly.” 

The job is not for everybody, she said. “I can take race out of it. These officers were drunk with power…It’s important and imperative that they are held accountable.”

Even though the MPD moved quickly to hold the officers accountable in Tyre Nichols’ death, Dorsey said, “[Memphis Police Chief] C.J. Davis gets no brownie points from me.”

Crump is often referred to as “Black America’s attorney general.” As the legal counsel for the Wells family, he said, “We understand policing in America. It started out as the slave patrol. Not much has changed.” 

He said his office is inundated with calls about police brutality. “The police just beat Black and brown people every day,” he said.

Reid queried Vitale about monetary settlements and whether the spotlight on savage beatings by the police changes anything.

Vitale, however, lauded Crump and other attorneys for “getting the details, exposing the lies, and shinning a bright light” on police misconduct. 

“The sad reality is that monetary settlements do not produce the kind of changes that we hope they would,” he said, and turned a critical eye to the mayor’s office.

“The mayor of Memphis [Jim Strickland] does not have a real plan to address the violence,” Vitale opined.

Since politics was addressed at this juncture in the discussion, Reid turned to Lee, the Texas congresswoman who co-sponsored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.

“When is America going to be able to openingly [sic]…be able to confront just the simple premise of fairness?” said Lee, and highlighted a few provisions in the reform bill, such as data collection and money for training.

“The whole issue is the [political] climate. We’re frozen in time,” she said. “Because of the climate, what will happen politically? Who will rise up?” 

The reform bill passed in the Democratic-controlled House that year but was opposed by the Republicans in the Senate. 

“We need to push for it to be passed out of the Senate,” said Lee, whose party is now in the minority. “I will say conspicuously, the challenges are immense.”

Tyre Nichols’ Death Set Off Raw Emotions and a Change at MPD

 MEMPHIS, TN – The savage beatdown that five Black police officers inflicted upon Tyre Nichols during a purported traffic stop, set off a powder keg of raw emotions and a call for change at the Memphis Police Department.

When the city of Memphis released the video on Jan. 27, Bianca Baker said she wept. Then anger welled up in her and intensified. 

“You wouldn’t treat a dog the way they treated this man,” she said. “I have sons. What got me was when he called out for his mother.”

For Baker, the video was quite excruciating to watch. For Jacqueline Jordan, it dredged up painful memories of her own son, Brandon K. Jordan, who was killed in Nashville five years ago. 

Brandon, then 22, was a student at Tennessee State University during the day and worked at FedEx at night. He didn’t know the killer and his two accomplices. They didn’t know him either.

He never saw them coming on the night he was gunned down or knew their intentions. The killer just fired two rounds and snuffed out Brandon’s life and ended his dream of becoming a sports commentator.

Now Jordan wonders if Brandon had called for her like Nichols had called for his mother, RowVaughn Wells, who along with her husband, Rodney Wells, shared their pain with the media. 

Nichols’s desperate cry for his mother was ignored by the five officers who pummeled him to death less than a hundred yards from his home, ironically, in the same subdivision where Jordan once lived.

Wells said she felt pain in her stomach around the time when Desmond Mills, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, and Tadarrius Bean roughhoused her 29-year-old son on Jan. 7. He died on Jan. 10. 

“Innocent people are always getting hurt,” said Jordan. “I know how Tyre’s mother feels. I am a mother too. Every day I think about my baby.”

MPD Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis terminated all five officers on Jan. 18. Each one faces second-degree murder; aggravated assault, acting in concert; two counts of aggravated kidnapping; two counts of official misconduct; and official oppression.

Baker is calling for a charge of first-degree murder for each ex-officer. “They beat him and kicked him like he was a roach,” she said. “I think they intentionally tried to kill him.”  

On Saturday, Jan. 28, Davis disbanded MPD’s Scorpion unit after calls for its disbandment rose to a feverish pitch. The ex-officers posted bail; they’re scheduled to be arraigned in mid-February.

Bennie Cobb, a retired captain with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office who has 37 years in law enforcement, said Davis had done the right thing. He, too, had called for MPD’s Scorpion unit to be disbanded.

“What you have is these guys under the color of law running and gunning and stopping people, trying to develop probable cause,” Cobb opined. “The stop itself was a pretext stop.”

Cobb explained that a pretext stop in law enforcement is not unusual. “You make the stop and then develop a probable cause afterward,” he said. “That’s what they were doing.” 

He didn’t want to see the video initially. But when he was called upon by the media to give his expert analysis on Nichols’s fatal beating, he looked carefully at the video and analyzed it.

The charges are warranted, said Cobb, owner of Eagle Eye Security Consultant and Training, where he trains police officers, security personnel, or interested citizens. 

He also teaches self-defense classes, handgun safety, and de-escalation techniques, which the ex-officers didn’t employ, he said, adding, “Not one time did I see any real resistance. I didn’t see him fighting back.”

 

Cobb equates Nichols’s beatdown to a gang initiation when new members allow themselves to be “jumped in” as a sign of strength and courage. In her opinion, Jordan believes the ex-officers behaved like a pack of wolves.

Memphis set a record in 2021 with 346 murders, according to FBI data. Cobb said an enforcement unit is needed in such cases and believes the Scorpion unit will return most likely under another name.

“You have to have an enforcement unit with a clear mission statement, a strong supervisor, and address complaints as they come in,” he said, and added that Nichols’s death was a result of excessive force.