Tyre Nichols’ Alleged Killers Already Broke The Law, So More Laws Aren’t The Answer — Accountability Is

Tyre Nichols was apparently brutally beat to death by several Memphis officers. All of it was captured on tape. As a former prosecutor and state attorney general, I customarily reserve judgment even when incidents are video recorded — as proper investigations to ensure fair play do take time and patience.

In this case, however, I do not think it much of a stretch to say the video makes it clear that the police officers involved will go to jail, the city of Memphis is going to pay out millions of dollars to Nichols’ family, and the Memphis Police Department is going to undergo severe and public scrutiny — reflecting its responsibility in the failed training and supervision of these rogue officers. This is what accountability should look like.

Yet, as has become the usual practice, Congress is now being called upon again to enact federal legislation to reform policing — ostensibly to prevent another Tyre Nichols or George Floyd or Rodney King tragedy from occurring.

If the officers that appeared to have beaten Nichols to death were white officers, the calls to Congress would have been accompanied with broad claims of systemic racism as well as the disproportionate targeting black victims. But in this instance, with the primary offending officers all appearing to be black, the usual specter of race as a motivator takes a backseat to what is readily apparent — these are just bad cops.

So, the proper question is: “What should I do now?” Do the circumstances of Nichols’ death require national police reform to prevent a similarly deadly occurrence?

All accounts indicate that Nichols’s actions were a crime, and not a result of standard police policies. Former police officers are facing criminal charges including murder.

Would a national ban on police chokeholds have prevented Nichols’ death? That’s what reformers wanted after Floyd’s death — as if that would have saved him from a bad cop.
Would a prohibition against specialized police units like the now-disbanded Memphis Police Department’s Scorpion unit have prevented Nichols’ death?

Nichols is now dead due to the fact that at least five Memphis Police Department members violated their oaths, broke the law and beat Nichols. It is possible that there are some instances where this behavior is actually being condoned by American police. This would warrant sweeping reforms.

However, the fact that officers are being held accountable by the system for their crimes does not mean that there is a need to reform the entire policing system. Rather, Nichols’ death demands accountability for gross deviations from proper conduct by corrupt individuals within the criminal justice system.

There is presumably not a police department in the country in which the apparent actions of the officers involved in Nichols’ death would not already be violating the law. According to The Washington Post Recognized, the Memphis Police Department “already has a policy on the books requiring officers to ‘take