Tyre Nichols’ mom broke down as she paid a heartbreaking tribute to her son while thousands of mourners filled his funeral in Memphis.
Among those who paid their respects to Nichols, the 29-year-old unarmed black man who was brutally beaten following a traffic stop, included Rev. Al Sharpton and civil rights leader Ben Crump.
Several speakers used the occasion to call for urgent police reform, with Vice President Kamala Harris saying: ‘We demand that Congress pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It’s non-negotiable.’
Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells tearfully told the crowd: ‘We need to pass that bill because if we don’t the next child that dies, that blood is going to be on their hands.’
Nichols died on January 10, three days after he was brutally beaten by several Memphis police officers.
As the ceremony got underway on Wednesday, the reverend remembered Nichols as a ‘good person, a beautiful soul, a son, a father, a brother, a friend, a human being, gone too soon.’
He said Nichols was ‘denied his rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness’ and was ‘denied [his] right to hold his son.’
Turner concluded his remarks by saying the pattern of black people being killed by police officers will be ‘canceled and will not be renewed.’
‘We’re going to overcome in this struggle for justice for our brother Tyre Nichols,’ he told the mourners.
The reverend added that the brutal attack on Nichols was ‘particularly offensive’ to the community because it was perpetrated by five black men.
‘You didn’t get there by yourself,’ he said.
‘People had to march for you… how dare you act like we didn’t fight for you.’
As he continued his eulogy following remarks from Vice-President Harris, Sharpton called for an end to qualified immunity while condemning the officers who killed Nichols.
‘You don’t fight crime by becoming criminals yourself,’ he said.
‘You don’t fight gangs by becoming five men against an unarmed man. That’s not policing, that’s punks.
‘If that man had been white, I believe you wouldn’t have beat him that night. We’re not asking for anything special, we’re just asking to be treated fair.’
Sharpton also echoed Harris’ call for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as he said people would have to pay the ‘same dues’ of the civil rights era to make meaningful change.
Addressing Tyre Nichols’ family, Sharpton said: ‘We’ll be there with them when the cameras are gone, when there is no longer a story… it doesn’t matter how long.
‘We are wedded in this struggle together.’
Taking the stage after Sharpton, civil rights attorney Ben Crump thanked the reverend for his work in bringing attention to police brutality.
‘For every George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, there are 100’s of others out there being killed,’ he said.
‘Without local activists, we never would have heard the name Tyre Nichols.’
The attorney also mirrored Sharpton’s support for police reform after Kamala Harris called it a ‘non-negotiable’.
He noted that there would be a ‘duty to intervene’ policy included in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that was championed by the VP earlier in the service, as Crump urged for quicker action against such crimes.
‘In this call to action, we build his legacy,’ he added.
‘We have to remember Memphis… it is important that the community sees swift justice.’
Speaking after Crump’s call to action, Nichols’ sisters paid a heartbreaking tribute to their fallen brother, reciting poetry and condemning how Tyre’s death led to one ‘losing my faith’.
‘I screamed and cried at how this could happen. It is a pain I have never felt, when those monsters hurt my baby brother. Even in his demise he was still polite. He asked them to ‘please’ stop.
‘I will always love by baby brother.’
Tyre’s parents thanked the crowd and activists for their support following the attack, as his stepfather Rodney Wells said: ‘The journey is not going to end here, it is just beginning.’
‘We are looking forward to getting justice, this is a continual fight. We can’t continue to let these people brutalize our kids.’
He also slammed the aftermath of the killing, where he said the manner in which Tyre’s killing was recalled to him was full of ‘lies and deceit’.
‘The truth will always come to light,’ he added.
Nichols’ mother RowVaughn issued a heartbreaking call for police reform, echoing calls from Vice President Harris and Ben Crump, she urged Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
She said: ‘We need to pass that bill because if we don’t the next child that dies, that blood is going to be on their hands.
‘The only thing keeping me going is believing my son was sent on an assignment. And now that assignment is over he has gone home.
‘Tyre was a beautiful person.’
