CNN political commentator Van Jones turned emotional on Friday while discussing the horrifying footage of Tyra Nichols’ assault by police in Memphis. The video, Jones said, was “cruel, inhumane, unacceptable, unfair,” and “as bad as people say.”
But it also exposed the lack of humanity and outright cowardice by the police who beat Nichols and eventually killed him. “Even if you couldn’t see it, you could hear the inhumanity here,” he said.
We won’t show the full video of the attack, but it’s important to know that Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, Followed home by police officers on the evening of 7 January And he claimed there was ‘reckless driving’ less than 50 yards from his residence. Of course, the Memphis police chief has since said that camera footage from other locations in the area does not support that claim and that stopping anything seems appropriate.
The police were immediately aggressive and violent with Nichols, with local officials saying the action was “unexplained”, and eventually they brutally beat him and beat him mercilessly for several minutes. He died of his injuries 3 days later. Police released the video Friday night in an effort to downplay potential protests. All the officers have been arrested and charged with murder.
Discussing the footage on Friday, Lemon said, “The voices are saying a lot. The sound of Tire the first time you hear it. He is calm. He is trying to pacify the police. He’s saying ‘Okay, okay. ok.’ He follows the voice of reason, and calm. And they are so cruel to him that he runs away.
“The next time you hear him he’s gone from calm to panic. Ma ma, ma, ma, screaming for his mother. He’s 100 yards from his house, hoping someone will find him.” can help. And then, he becomes dazed, anguished, utterly incoherent, unable to form a word, to the voice of peace. You see this degradation of a human being. If you don’t see it, you Could hear it. You could hear it,” Jones continued.
“And then the police chime in. Profane. ‘I hope they shut his ass.’ Unbelievable level of viciousness, and then only sympathy is for themselves as they are so busy pepper spraying each other. Look at the police reaction to pepper spray on themselves. They can’t stand it, the burning sensation, can’t stand [pepper spray] In his eyes They need help from each other, and yet, the beading continues for someone else, and there is no help for someone else who has unleashed the full force of pepper spray. And so even though you haven’t seen these images, just Tyree’s voice. You could say that he was the only calm person in the beginning. And in the end he can’t even make out a word,” Jones said.
“It’s disgusting. It’s reprehensible. Inhuman. It’s shocking. It’s as bad as people say. But even if you don’t see it, you can hear the inhumanity here,” Jones concluded.
The commentary Jones posted to Twitter does not include footage of the violence Jones described. But it contains a very limited portion of the video, and later we put it at the bottom of this page so you can avoid watching it if you want.
In a separate clip from the same episode of his CNN show, Jones spoke with fellow CNN personality Don Lemon about the use of tear gas and the kind of torture the policemen who killed Nichols used. There is no footage of the attack in that video, and you can watch it immediately below: