NICHOLS’ MOURNERS CALL FOR POLICE REFORM

His siblings remembered his passion for skateboarding and his love of photography. They said he had a sense of independence, a comfort and confidence in being himself, that had taken hold at an early age. At 29, Tyre Nichols was finding his way.

But as his family gathered with hundreds of mourners for his funeral Wednesday, relatives said they were searching for meaning in the killing of Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers, who pulled him from his car and severely beat him.

His mother, RowVaughn

Wells, said she was sustained by the idea that her son had been part of a divine mission — “sent here on assignment from God” to change how police operated in Memphis and around the country.

“I guess now his assignment is done,” Wells said from the pulpit at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, “and he’s been taken home.”

The driving message from speaker after speaker Wednesday was that a new mission was beginning, one that would have to be led by the many Americans who were angered and horrified by the nearly one hour of footage that showed Nichols being kicked, pummeled and pepper-sprayed by those officers.

“This is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at the pulpit. She noted that one vital piece of that mission would be renewing efforts to pass federal legislation that would bring increased accountability to cases of police violence.

Nichols died Jan. 10, three days after a traffic stop that turned into a brutal beating by Memphis police officers who were part of a specialized unit formed to help halt a surge of violence in the city.

Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer, noted that within 20 days of his death, five police officers were fired for using excessive force and failing to render aid, and then were charged with second-degree murder, along with other felonies. The Scorpion unit, the specialized group patrolling high-crime areas that the officers had been part of, has been disbanded.

“His legacy will be one of equal justice,” Crump said of Nichols. “It will be the blueprint going forward.”

ANDREW NELLES THE TENNESSEAN VIA AP Vice President Kamala Harris (left) holds the hand of RowVaughn Wells as she is held by her husband, Rodney Wells, during the funeral service for her son Tyre Nichols on Wednesday in Memphis, Tenn.