Tyre Nichols and A New Push for Police Reform

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

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🗓️ 2 February 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Mourners gathered this week in Memphis to remember Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man whose death at the hands of Memphis police officers reignited discussions about race and law enforcement.

The Reverend Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris were among those who attended the memorial, and their message was clear: something must change in our nation’s policing.

This week, Diane spoke with Paul Butler, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and author of the book “Chokehold: Policing Black Men.” He joined her to discuss what effective reform could look like – and how it might be achieved.

This call for change has become all too familiar for advocates of police reform. It is a refrain that has been heard after the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, and most loudly two years ago after the murder of George Floyd.

While Butler doubts the federal government will enact the kinds of sweeping protections he sees as necessary to addressing issues of racism in the criminal justice system, he does see hope in the changes being made by local leaders and in some police departments across the country.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Diane. Join me for my next book club meeting on Wednesday, February 22nd at 1 p.m. Eastern.
0:11.2	I'll host a discussion of Kindred by Octavia Butler, a time travel story that explores the
0:19.8	savagery and legacy of slavery. Find out more and register at diandream.org slash book club.
0:34.8	Hi, it's Diane. On my mind calls for a police reform after the killing of Tyrene Nichols.
0:43.3	This is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet
0:54.9	of people who had been charged with keeping them safe. On Wednesday,
1:00.9	Warner's gathered in Memphis to remember the 29-year-old black man who died after being beaten by police.
1:10.2	Speakers included Vice President Kamala Harris and the call was clear.
1:17.4	Something must change in our nation's policing. It's a familiar refrain. One heard most loudly
1:26.2	after the murder of George Floyd. Paul Butler is Professor at Georgetown University Law Center
1:34.8	and author of Tocco, Policing Black Men. He joined me to talk about what effective reform could look
1:43.6	like and how it might be achieved. Paul Butler, if he would review for us why Tyrene Nichols was stopped
1:55.2	and how things escalated. Well, I wish I could tell you why he was stopped. The police chief
2:02.2	doesn't know. The police report is a lie as it often is in cases involving police who
2:12.1	seem to violate their badges. What the police report says is that Mr. Nichols was stopped for
2:19.9	reckless driving. The chief says she didn't see any evidence of reckless driving and the videos,
2:28.8	the four videos, don't pick up the encounter until the police are pulling Mr. Nichols out of the car.
2:40.5	Now, that's what we see. What we know from how police departments operate is almost certainly
2:49.2	he was pulled over for what's called a protection stop. That is the police identify what they claim
2:57.6	as a traffic infraction, but they don't really care about whether somebody isn't using their
3:03.7	turn signal. They're just looking for an excuse to stop a driver to see what they can see.
3:11.7	That's called pretext and the Supreme Court has said that those kinds of stops are perfectly
	...

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