had to shout Tyre New Yorkers and Fordham Community Nichols’ death and the release of his videotaped violent encounter with the police sparked

officer who was suspended on Jan. 30 by the Memphis Police Department, but details of his identity and his involvement have not been made public.

The five former Memphis police officers who were initially fired were charged with second-degree murder and other crimes that include kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. The sixth and seventh former police officers have not been charged with any criminal offenses. In addition, the Memphis Fire Department fired two EMTs and a lieutenant for not providing care for 19 minutes after their arrival to the scene.

According to The New York Times, the Memphis district attorney stated that “The actions of all of them (the five police officers initially charged) resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols, and they are all responsible.”

U.S. President Joe Biden released his statement via Twitter on Jan. 27 in response to Nichols’ encounter with the police. He expressed his support of the Nichols family and called for peaceful protest.

Fordham students and New Yorkers took to the streets to remember Nichols and advocate in his name. Demonstrators gathered in Washington Square Park, Times Square and other New York locations to protest the police brutality used against Nichols.

Twenty days after Nichols’ encounter with the police on Jan. 27, the Memphis Police Department released the video showing the attack. Nine days before that, a federal investigation was opened up by the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the five police officers that were involved in the incident, who are Black, were fired on Jan. 20.

A sixth police officer, who is white and had fired his taser at Nichols, was fired on Feb. 3. On Feb. 8, City of Memphis Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Sink said seven additional Memphis police officers are facing potential administrative discipline. This includes a police

“Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death,” he said. “It is yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day.”

Biden later invited Nichols’ mother and stepfather, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, to attend his State of the Union address on Feb. 7. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams also responded to the attack in a press conference on Jan. 27, calling for peaceful protests.

The release of the footage showing the violent encounter sparked conversations across the Fordham community in regard to policing and the power of protesting.

Tristan Grant, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’25, attended a protest in Washington

Square Park on Jan. 28 and emphasized the obligation they felt to chant Nichols’ name.

“We had to walk all the way here, we had to get on these steps, and we had to shout Tyre Nichols’ name,” Grant said.

Another attendee from the same protest, Christian Ripke, FCLC ’25, shared a phrase that he recalled from the demonstration: “The poisonous tree of policing has to be uprooted and needs to be replanted.”

Ivelisse Cuevas-Molina, an assistant professor in the political science department at Fordham, compared Nichols’ attack to that of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. Nichols’ death comes nearly 32 years after King’s beating, where police kicked, tased and attacked King with a baton repeatedly during an arrest.

In King’s case, the acquittal of four officers triggered six days of rioting in Los Angeles and disturbances across the U.S. Cuevas-Molina said that she believes there has been little significant change in a reduction of police force between the beatings of Nichols and King.

“With the case of Rodney King, people were out in the streets protesting against what happened to him in California, and the truth is that this just continues to happen,” she said. “I don’t think that there has been real substantial change since Rodney King, because the rate at which this is happening have not slowed down.”

Cuevas-Molina also noted that protests are “a legitimate form of political participation” and added that they are a right protected by the First Amendment.

“It is clear that throughout our history in the United States, protests have been an effective way to get political and social change,” she said.

Reactions across social media have emphasized that the race of the majority of the police officers involved was unsurprising, since patterns of tracking police violence have revealed that the issue of police brutality is not one of individual bias but a larger systemic issue that encompasses a myriad of legal and social institutions.

Since George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, laws implementing police reform have been passed throughout the United States. In spite of this legislation, killings by police reached an all-time high in 2022. According to The Guardian, Black Americans compose 13% of the population but make up 24% of those killed by police violence.

When the mugshots of the police officers involved were released, Grant noted feelings of disheartenment.

“The notion that Black men could so hastily gang up, brutalize, and execute another Black man in this way was frankly sickening,” he said. “For these officers, basic human rights were of no consideration, so any togetherness or kinship (sometimes displayed between people of the same community) would also be voided or severed.”

Since at least five of the seven officers who maltreated Nichols were Black, Grant emphasized that the race of the police officers is ineffective at preventing extreme force because of the legacy of policing and role of police in underserved communities, which are disproportionately Black and Latine.

“The race of the police officers is largely inconsequential because every day cops choose to carry the badge, they carry out and uphold a legacy of stolen lives and deadly force that terrorize minority communities all over the nation,” Grant said. “And it is this dogma that permeates into their work; race, skin color, and, it seems, even human decency are swept aside the moment the badge is donned.”

John Perla, FCLC ’25, stated that there is “no doubt in his mind” that each of the five police officers initially charged had been victims of discrimination at some point.

“To see them have such a lack of empathy toward Tyre Nichols shows to me that it’s a much deeper issue with our policing system than just race,” he said.

As technology has developed, video documentation as evidence has become more significant in police brutality cases. According to the New York Police Department (NYPD) webpage, NYPD officers are equipped with body cameras. Research has shown that the existence of body cams