Alabama NAACP official responds to arrest, death of Tyre Nichols

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Many people are still reacting to the recently released video of the arrest of Tyre Nichols.

Five Memphis police officers have been charged with the murder of Nichols, but many people are still calling for change within law enforcement.

One of those people is Benard Simelton, the President of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP.

The body-camera footage was released by the Memphis Police Department 26 days after the arrest. In the video, all five police officers can be seen chasing and hitting Nichols, even as he appears to comply with the officers’ requests.

Initially, those five officers made claims about Nichols’ behavior that are not supported by the video. Simelton told WAFF 48 that he applauds the Memphis Police Department for releasing the footage and moving forward with the indictments.

He added that in order to learn from this, people have to affect change by starting at the very beginning of police training.

“Every law enforcement agency in the country needs to review this video as a part of their training. How not to do things,” Simelton said. “Hopefully in the end this will be a learning experience for police officers in particular and for this nation.”

WAFF 48 asked Simelton what he would say to the five officers charged with the murder of Nichols. He responded, saying that in these situations he can only think about the pain of the affected family.

“I can’t tell the mom how she should feel, I know she feels terrible,” Simelton said. “What I would say to those officers is, you should be ashamed and hopefully you are dealing with this the same way the mom is.”

Click Here to Subscribe on YouTube: Watch the latest WAFF 48 news, sports & weather videos on our YouTube channel!

Copyright 2023 WAFF. All rights reserved.