Women on 2 sides of a tragedy
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Tyre Nichols’ mother was just steps away from her son but couldn’t hear his anguished cries.
Beaten and broken, struggling to survive, Nichols had called out for her as five Memphis Police Department officers punched him, kicked him, and hit him with a baton after a traffic stop on Jan. 7.
Nichols, 29, who lived with his mom and stepdad, had slipped from the grasp of police after he was pulled over, dragged from his car and hit with a stun gun. Caught minutes later near their home and beaten savagely by five officers, he screamed, “Mom! Mom!”
Moments later, the police knocked on the mother’s door, but not to alert RowVaughn Wells that her child had been savagely beaten, according to Rodney Wells, her husband and Nichols’ stepfather. They said Nichols had been arrested for driving under the influence and was being taken to the hospital. Police said they could not go to the hospital because their son was under arrest.
So they waited. Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, a mother herself, didn’t find out what her officers had done to Nichols until later either. The lack of police supervisors on the scene would be noted by many after Nichols died Jan. 10.
The fact that no one felt compelled to fill her in until the following day raised questions about the culture of her department she would have to answer in the coming days, even as she was asking them herself.
“There were failures of who should render aid, who
should have notified, who went to the mother’s house, how they communicated,” Chief Davis told the Associated Press in a Jan, 27 interview. “Why did the chief get notified at 4 o’clock in the morning and the incident occurred at 8 o’ clock the previous night?”
It was around that same time of 4 a. m. that RowVaughn Wells received a call from a doctor at the hospital where he had been taken, Rodney Wells said. The doctor told them to get to the hospital immediately.
When she got there, she found Nichols on life support. While Ms. Wells was seeing her son’s battered body for the first time, Chief Davis’ police department was swinging into damage control.
The coming hours and days in Memphis would set the tone for America’s latest reckoning over police brutality, with Ms. Wells and Chief Davis on opposite sides of the same tragedy. Their lives would be altered, in dramatically different ways.
Ms. Wells and her family seethed, cried and mourned for Tyre Nichols, the happygo-lucky skateboarder and amateur photographer who came to Memphis from California
about a year ago. She ultimately hung on to the hope her son’s fate might mean something, taking its place as it did in the long line of young Black men who have died at the hands of police.
Chief Davis, the first Black woman to run the Memphis Police Department, faced heavy criticism. As she and other city officials came to grips with what had happened, they gradually took steps to hold the officers accountable, share the horror of the case with the public, and try to minimize the possibility that the incident could set off unrest in Memphis and beyond.
At 6:03 a.m. Jan. 8, the police department posted a vague statement on social media saying that Nichols had two “confrontations” with police. He had “complained of having a shortness of breath, at which time an ambulance was called to the scene,” the statement said.
Ms. Wells knew better by then. She had seen him bruised, swollen, hooked up to machines.
Memphis’ fire department later revealed that 27 minutes elapsed from the time emergency medics arrived on the
scene to the moment when an ambulance took him to a hospital.
“When I walked into that hospital room, my son was already dead,” Ms. Wells said during a Jan. 23 news conference.
Doubts about the police department’s initial account only grew. A photo of a bruised Tyre in the hospital was distributed in the media. Activists questioned the department’s account and pushed for release of the arrest video.
Nichols’ family hired lawyer Ben Crump, known for representing the families of others struck down by police, including George Floyd. Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 led to nationwide protests and raised the volume on calls for police reform.
Ms. Wells cried throughout a Jan. 17 memorial service for her son but would not speak publicly until later.
Gradually, a fuller portrait of Nichols emerged. He had lived with his mom and stepfather and made boxes at FedEx alongside Mr. Wells. He had two brothers, a sister and a 4-year-old son. He was an amateur photographer who loved sunsets and
skateboarding.
Tyre had his mother’s name tattooed on his arm.
“This man walked into a room, and everyone loved him,” said Angelina Paxton, a friend who traveled from California for the service.
That same day, Memphis officials pledged to release video of the attack.
The five officers were fired Jan. 20 after an internal police investigation revealed violations of police rules, including excessive use of force, and failure to intervene and render aid. In a statement, Chief Davis called their actions “egregious.”
The family met with authorities to see the video — horrific footage Ms. Wells said she was unable to watch at that meeting.
Ms. Wells said she was inside her house at the time of the beating, waiting for Tyre to get home and give his customary cheerful greeting of “Hello, parents!”
“For a mother to know that their child was calling them in their need, and I wasn’t there for him, do you know how I feel right now?” Ms. Wells told media during a Jan. 27 news conference.
In a late-night video statement released Jan. 25, Chief
Davis said she had met with the Nichols family and offered her condolences. She promised to continue investigating other officers’ actions.
“I am a mother, I am a caring human being, who wants the best for all of us,” Chief Davis said. “This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity.”
Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith were charged the next day — 19 days after Nichols’ arrest. It’s a length of time that Mr. Crump said should be a “blueprint” for other police agencies to follow when dealing with similar situations.
Chief Davis disbanded the Scorpion unit on Jan. 28, after “listening intently” to the Nichols family, community leaders and other officers on the team.
Mr. Crump said the Nichols family considered the move “appropriate and proportional to the tragic death of Tyre Nichols.” He also called it “a decent and just decision for all citizens of Memphis.”
Nichols was laid to rest on Feb. 1. The funeral at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, delayed by icy weather, featured a rousing choir, a eulogy by the Rev. Al Sharpton and a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris. Also present were relatives of Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean, Jalen Randle and Floyd — Black people who also had been cut down by police.
Despite her grief, Ms. Wells spoke. Speaking from a lectern in the large church, she wiped away tears and said she believed her son “was sent here on an assignment from God.”
“And I guess now his assignment is done. He’s been taken home.”