(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/30/23) – The US Council of Muslim Organizations, the largest umbrella group for Muslim organizations in America, again called for systemic law enforcement reform at the local, state, and federal after the police killing of another Black American man, 29-year-old Tyre Nichols.
Again, another helpless victim was killed while surrounded by heavily armed men, pleading for mercy and calling out to his mother – whose home, was less than one hundred yards away.
Again, a group of rogue police officers, after a pretextual traffic stop, dragged a man from his car, and delivered brutal blows, boot kicks, and punches to his body.
Again, a band of militarized police officers has beaten to death yet another unwell man (Tyre suffered from Crohn’s disease that had reduced his six feet three frame to an emaciated hundred and forty-five pounds), and in the crucial time afterward did not deliver care to him for more than twenty minutes. Instead, they were recorded congratulating one another and colluding to implausibly claim a constrained and vastly outmuscled, unarmed Tyre somehow reached for their police revolvers.
We welcome the Memphis police department and local prosecutors’ relatively quick action to dismiss and charge the perpetrating police officers. This has likely been responsible and contributed to the peaceful protests that called for an end to the epidemic of police brutality, especially against Black Americans. The city’s disbanding of its special operations so-called scorpion unit, to which the offending officers belonged, is also a positive step.
But what victims’ loved ones, communities, and conscientious Americans with a historical sense of the state’s long and lethal interactions with members of the public, especially Black Americans, are calling for are strict federal and state legal restraints – or even wholesale apparatus changes –at every level and the ratification of staunchly enforced, scrupulous safeguards for all the public in their policing interactions with the state.
This means we must create the means to end the far too prevalent culture of aggression and dehumanization of Black people. It matters not whether the offending officers are White, Black, or of other races. Cultural problems validate aggression against its minority populations.
The US Council of Muslim Organizations and American Muslims support efforts to reform laws, policies, training, and departments to stop this pattern of violence and save lives across America.
We offer our deepest condolences to the family, loved ones, community, and friends of Tyre Nichols. May God ease your hearts and your suffering and ensure that his loss was not in vain.
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