Opinion: Honor Tyre Nichols by reimagining public safety

Editor’s Note: Rev. Dr. Rosalyn R. Nichols is the president of the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), a coalition of community and faith-based organizations in Memphis, Tennessee. Rev. Ayanna Watkins is lead organizer and executive director at MICAH. The views expressed here are the authors’ own. Read more opinion on CNN.

Tyre Nichols may no longer be with us in the physical sense, but his story is not over. In our faith traditions, we trust that Tyre lives on as we continue to say his name and fight for change in his memory.

In the days leading up to the release of the video footage showing Tyre’s last moments, Memphis felt unnaturally quiet. A tense, uneasy quiet that wrapped around us like a fog. Yes, our community had seen the effects of police violence all over the country, and here at home as well – Darrius Stewart was shot and killed in 2015, Martavious Banks survived being shot in 2018 – and the list goes on. But this time was different. It felt heavier, ominous…and the eyes of the nation were on us.

In reality, it was not quiet in our city that week — nor has it been quiet any week since. Our collective anger and grief have overflowed to the streets of Memphis. We have shouted out for accountability through protest. We have talked face-to-face with Shelby District Attorney Steve Mulroy. We have spoken before the Memphis City Council. We have put pressure on the Memphis Police Department (MPD) for more transparency.

We have cried out with and for Tyre’s family at prayer vigils. We were not silent; we were enraged.

Though we had not yet seen the video, we had seen the image of a swollen, battered young man in his hospital bed. We heard from his family’s lawyers the horrific descriptions of what had happened to him at the hands of law enforcement. We understood that his mother could barely watch the first minute of it. So, without seeing, we knew.

Still, it seemed the city had entered a tense pause. Waiting to see: Would this time be different? Would this case of death-by-policing lead to any substantive accountability or any lasting change in law enforcement? Do we dare to hope there might actually be #JusticeForTyre, when there had not been true justice for so many before him?

As we waited, the names and faces of five Black officers came across our screens. Betrayal was added to the anger and grief we were already feeling. Betrayal, but not surprise. As Black and brown people, we have plenty of experience with our people becoming instruments of White supremacist culture.

When the videos were released, they confirmed what we already knew: that it was time, again, to fight for our lives. That’s what we’ve continued to do in the days since.

We’ve been down this road before — as a city, as a country, as Black and brown people. We keep hoping it doesn’t happen again — and then it does. Tyre was clearly just trying to survive a traffic stop and get home to his parents — to his mother. And he knew, just as well as the rest of us with Black and brown skin, that getting home was not guaranteed.

The ongoing revelation of more MPD officers, sheriff’s deputies and EMT/fire department personnel being involved – or not involved enough – has further solidified our knowledge that it’s not only the institution of policing that is to blame. Law enforcement, first response and public service writ large has an institutionally ingrained disregard for Black bodies and Black lives.

As people of faith and shared values in Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), we join many others in our community in standing up for the dignity and humanity of Black and brown lives. We stand strong with the family of Tyre and those who loved him. Not one more person should go through this abuse and injustice – especially at the hands of those who say their mission is to protect and to serve.

It was clear at President Joe Biden’s speech at the State of the Union that aspirations remain high – he spoke ambitiously about “finishing the job” on police reform – but actual solutions have, for so many years, remained elusive or been outright rejected, both at the federal level and here in Memphis.

What would it mean for us to actually reimagine public safety?

The story of our work begins with that question and has guided it since. The coalition that became MICAH took shape in the months after the police killing of Darrius Stewart. A few years later, we formed a working group calling for greater transparency from the MPD. Today, MICAH continues to work alongside powerful activist organizations such as Decarcerate Memphis and Official Black Lives Matter Memphis for data transparency and with the Justice and Safety Alliance to turn public attention and voter engagement toward a new vision of public safety.

If we in the community don’t know what standards and practices police are supposed to be holding themselves to, how can we be expected to accept the notion that only a “few bad apples” are the culprit? We need to see what rot is embedded in the tree itself.

As of 2020, MPD policies and procedures are posted online. The 2019 training synopsis MPD shared with us reveals at least some of the rot in the tree. In new officers’ 880 hours of training, 208 of those hours are spent on firearms training alone. Another 123 hours are spent on patrol procedures, including 36 hours on officer survival. By contrast, just 26 hours are spent on interpersonal communication, including just 10 hours on conflict resolution and de-escalation. If a budget is a moral document, then a training manual is a culture-creating document. And we can plainly see where MPD has placed its priorities.

MPD has also reportedly dramatically lowered its recruitment standards for new officers – including requiring previous police or military experience. A former lieutenant told the Associated Press, “They would allow pretty much anybody to be a police officer.” MPD did not respond to requests for comment about hiring standards, but multiple news outlets quoted police Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, who took over in June 2021, as saying supervision of less experienced officers is crucial. She said, “Culture eats policy for lunch in police departments.”

We have also long called for Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) to have subpoena power. The one body that should have true community oversight in cases of police conduct has been so systematically disempowered, it is left to make recommendations that MPD is essentially free to ignore. An ordinance was recently proposed that would require reporting on what happens to CLERB recommendations received by MPD – as a step toward greater accountability from MPD and authority for CLERB.

Here in Memphis, we’re not going to stop pushing, along with our community partners, for data transparency, for better training, for more accountability. As we continue to grieve, we are also in building mode, looking to continue sharing demands from the families of those victimized by police violence even as we sharpen our own calls to MPD and local government here for the resources to promote cultural transformation around policing and truly reimagine public safety.

Right now, we have the opportunity to fight for an ending that is not like the rest. And we will not give up.