• Wide Angle The Racial Gap Between Blacks and Whites: Original Sin at the Bottom of America

Memphis police on Saturday permanently disabled the unit of five officers who fatally beat a young African-American man in the latest case of police brutality to shock and misunderstand the United States.

The death of

29-year-old Tire Nichols

has reignited a harrowing debate across the United States about uniformed violence, especially after promises of reform swept the country following the death of George Floyd in 2020.

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"Mom, mom, mom", the desperate screams of Tire Nichols during the beating at the hands of five police officers

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"Mom, mom, mom", the desperate screams of Tire Nichols during the beating at the hands of five police officers

USA.

The Memphis Police publish the video of the fatal beating of the African-American Tire Nichols

  • Writing: AFPMemphis (USA)

The Memphis Police publish the video of the fatal beating of the African-American Tire Nichols

The five officers, also African-American, had been

from the Memphis Scorpion unit

, which launched in November 2021 with the intent of

reducing illegal activity in hot spots,

including by blanketing those areas with more officers.

But on Saturday, the Memphis Police Department said in a statement that it was "in everyone's best interest to permanently deactivate the Scorpion Unit."

Nichols' family welcomed the decision

in a statement from his attorneys, calling it "appropriate and proportionate to the tragic death of Tire Nichols, and also a

decent and fair decision for all the citizens of Memphis."

Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, the founder of the unit, had previously told CNN that, at least initially, it had been successful, with

crime dropping by 2022 after a record 345 homicides the year before

, a number that , according to her, had provoked "an outcry from the community".

The unit, whose acronym stands for Street Crime Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods,

aimed to "reduce armed violence

, be visible in communities and also influence the increase in crime," he said.

Despite national calls for police reform after Floyd's death, the number of people killed during interactions with police reached its highest level in 10 years in 2022, with 1,186 fatalities, according to the Mapping website. police violence.

The officers involved in Nichols' death

face charges of second-degree murder

, as well as charges of aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping.

Even after the release of a graphic video showing the beating on Friday, some

key questions remained unanswered,

primarily

what prompted Nichols' arrest.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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