Hey y'all, this is Gene and before we get into the episode this week, we wanted to stop

for a second to talk about the killing of Tyrene Nichols in Memphis. Tyrene Nichols

was 29, he was a skateboarder, he was a dad, and he worked the late shift at FedEx.

And that's what he was doing on the evening of January 7th, when five police officers

from a specialized police unit in Memphis pulled him over during his lunch break for what

they claimed was reckless driving. With the minutes, those officers were beating him,

they were pepper spraying him, and Tyrene Nichols would die three days later in the hospital

from the injuries he sustained in that attack. We know what happened to Tyrene because the

city of Memphis released footage and audio from the body cameras that those officers were

wearing, as well as some footage from some surveillance cameras on the street. Before

that video came out, city officials warned people that what was in it was real bad. The city's

police chief in the days leading up to the video's release said that it was worse than

the Rodney King beaded. And they seemed to be trying to get people ready for how disturbing

the footage was, but instead it created a macabre anticipation for the tape, a kind of like

collective countdown to its release, like a movie premiere or something. And we've been

covering stories like this on Coastwich for a minute, like long enough to remember when

body cameras were actually floated as a potential remedy for police violence. You know, like

maybe being recorded might keep some of the most violent impulses of the cops in check.

Instead, in this case, and so many others, they mainly provided us with the stuff for

another viral video in this whole grim genre, right? There was John Crawford in Ohio in 2014,

Walter Scott in South Carolina in 2015, Vol. Castile in a suburb of St. Paul in 2016, then

there's Eric Garner in Staten Island, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and of course George

...