Tyre Nichols' mother accuses police of beating her son 'like a piñata'

BET À DAY

“They had reduced him to a pulp”. With her raw pain, Tyre Nichols' mother stirred America, recounting the death of her son “beaten to death” according to her by Memphis police officers.

Behind a loud megaphone, RowVaughn Wells warned the people of this large city in Tennessee, in the southern United States, on Thursday evening that the video of the drama, which is due to be released on Friday evening, will be “horrifying”. /p>

She hasn't seen it, unlike her husband. But she saw with her own eyes the abuse suffered by her son when she visited him in the hospital, a few hours after his beating.

“He had bruises all over, his head was swollen like a watermelon, his neck was an open sore from being so swollen,” she described in a poignant interview aired Friday by CNN. “When I saw that, I knew he was dead”. 

“They had reduced him to a pulp.” 

“Where has their humanity gone? They beat my son like a pinata,” she continued, referring to the decorated object that children blow up to collect candy and toys at birthday parties, a tradition imported from Mexico.

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Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old African-American, was hospitalized on January 7 after a “confrontation” with police who wanted to arrest him for a simple traffic violation. He died three days later.

On Thursday, five agents, themselves African-Americans, were charged with murder and imprisoned. Four of them were later released on bail.

“Sunset”

The circumstances of the tragedy are not yet known, but RowVaughn Wells has been saying for several days, his “son was good”.

“He liked to skateboard”, “went out every evening to watch the sunset and take pictures”, “had a tattoo with my name on his arm”, she indicated during a conference of press at the beginning of the week. 

“Does this seem like someone who does not respect the police?”

Admitting that she does not yet understand everything, she then confided between two sobs: “all I know is that my son Tire is no longer with me”. 

Despite her distress, she hopes that her city, nor any another, will not catch fire. “When the video comes out, it will be horrible, but I want you to demonstrate peacefully,” she told the crowd paying tribute to her son on Thursday evening.

“I don't want that you burn the cities, that you devastate the streets, because that is not what my son would have wanted,” she insisted, “…and because we have to live there.”

As for the officers, this grieving mother assured CNN to “pity” them. “They bring shame to their family, to the African-American community,” she said.