South Carolina, United States.- Former US President Donald Trump has called the footage of the brutal beating of Tire Nichols by five Memphis police officers “horrifying,” saying it “should never have happened.”
“It seemed terrible to me. He was in a great predicament. They were beating him. That should never have happened,” the former president said yesterday in an interview with The Associated Press, a day after the authorities released the images of the attack against the Black man, 29, during a traffic stop.
Because of the beating, Nichols passed away three days later.
Trump’s comments draw attention because of his new bid for the White House and his history of encouraging rough treatment of people in police custody.
Trump was the President during the protests demanding racial justice in the summer of 2020 that were sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of an officer in Minneapolis.
Back then, Trump signed an executive order to encourage better police practices but was criticized for failing to acknowledge systemic racial bias.
In the end, Trump centered his 2020 re-election campaign around a “law and order” message that highlighted his support for law enforcement.
Video just released in Memphis shows officers holding Nichols to the ground while beating him for three minutes with their fists, boots and batons.
In the image the strident insults of the police officers are heard at Nichols and at him when he shouts “mom”. Trump called the latter a “very sad moment.”
“That was the moment that struck me the most, I’m honest,” he added.
The former president did not address the video in his speeches in New Hampshire or South Carolina, the first stops of his presidential campaign with a view to 2024.
The five Memphis Police Department officers, who are also black, were fired along with charges of murder and other crimes.
The Nichols family legal team compared what happened to the notorious 1991 case in which officers beat up Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.
Trump said the Memphis police took a “strong step” in disbanding the police unit involved in the assault, which was created to target violent offenders in high-crime areas.
“Look, the images may not be totally conclusive, but to me they are pretty conclusive; it was a ruthless and violent situation, hard to believe, for a traffic violation,” he said.
The beating again raised questions about the fatality of encounters with police after repeated calls for change, national protests and scrutiny of the corporation after Floyd’s murder.
Trump condemned that murder at the time but also censured the protests that were mainly peaceful, although marred by outbreaks of violence.
