Oh, my God. Those innocent, sweet words of self-explanation of his passion for photography are deeply moving, in and of themselves. Then to think what torture this sweet soul experienced -- as you say, the last image in his mind before he died -- is so completely opposite from this lovely person, no words. No words. Just tears. I don't know how his mother can stand it, knowing that her beloved son's final words were him calling to his Mama for help. I don't know how she will live with this horrible knowledge. I won't be watching the video. Reading his sweet words is enough for me. Prayers for his mother, his family, his little son. Prayers for Tyre that he rest in the arms of Angels for as long as it takes for him to become fully healed -- emotionally, physically, spiritually healed and ready to move forward in his Soul's journey.
Tyre Nichols, Artist and Friend: "My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what i am seeing through my eye and out through my lens." Your your Vision, Tyre, your Goodness, Words, your Images, your Love, your Passion will Live On in the Hearts and Souls of millions of people who also want to Create a Better World where we See our Fellow Citizens not as enemies or targets for hatred, but as Friends. Thank You Tyre. Thank You Kathy for your Healing Words here. Thank You Steve. May we Follow in Tyre's steps and Share a Vision of Depth, Honor, Dignity, Love and Hope.
One thing that shines through all this tragedy for me is the quality of the Black people left behind, the families and friends of victims show such kindness and desire, not for revenge but for growth and understanding and peace. Your heart aches for these Mothers especially. So many times the qualities of the person lost are torn away by an event, as banal as a traffic stop, that can lead to such inhuman behavior. It needs to be bring a swift and devastating penalty. One so forceful as to make people with malice in their hearts think twice before robbing us of such a worthy young person.
Following the Mother Emmanuel Massacre here in Charleston, SC on June 17, 2015, the white population of Charleston was astounded to see family, after family, after family of the slaughtered -- gunned down during the prayer following their weekly Bible study at church -- go to the jail cell where the White Supremacist murderer was incarcerated (we don't use his name) and say, "I forgive you for what you did" and "I'll be praying for you". Our city was brought together by these beautiful people in a way that we had never been before. That warmth remains.
These 2 videos released today have left us all grieving for America. You are all so eloquently speaking to this moment. I have 2 rather simplistic comments to add, maybe not so deep, but things we could change.
We are a military family. I am offended by all the disrespectful versions of the American flag, black, blue, trumpy, on sandals and t shirts. We should have higher standards.
Another very simple take away- why is a police unit like that doing traffic stops?
Always, love the eloquence of Steve and his subscribers.
Thank you for saying out loud what we have known for a while..the thin blue line flag has been co-opted as a way for racists to fly it on their front porch or stick it to their bumper in lieu of the Confederacy’s Stars and Bars. They want you to know they are small minded bigots and think the rest of us are so stupid we can’t read their “coded” message.
I am a native Texan and typically these days the thin blue line flag is accompanied by a trump flag and a ‘Come and Take It’ flag. Their trifecta as it were. Occasionally, they just go ahead and stick a confederate flag sticker on their bumper too. Why not?
Let me welcome you to Kevin McCarthy's district. The dissonance of knowing you are in California, but live in a place just like you described, is mind boggling. In addition to the flags you name, the Gadsden is required, and the blackened US flag (no quarter given) are frequently seen.
They fly Confederate flags in California? I drove quite a bit of historic Route 66 from Santa Monica to Santa Fe, NM in October and didn’t see any. I did fail to mention you see a lot of bumper stickers that say ‘Don’t California My Texas’.
It's happening in places in Michigan, too. Three locals from my area are being held and charged for 1/6. And my neighbors, right next door, were there. I am ashamed of them.
I am not surprised, Sandra. I lived in southern Michigan for over 10 years, mostly in rural areas. Many bumpers with Confederate stickers. Now they have added to their sticker collection on their bumpers, plus BIG Trump flags. They don't seem to know Michigan was on the Union side in the Civil War.
Not in the MAGA GOP era...but, I did drive the backroads from I-85 (I was coming from Mobile, AL headed to Charlotte, NC) when I saw a sign for Warm Springs, GA.I suspected I’d never be this close again, so off the interstate onto 2 lane roads into the Georgia woods. I really enjoyed the tour of FDR’s Little White House and the warm spring fed bath facility.
However, I didn’t allow myself to be lured into stopping at a combo roadside stand where you could buy produce AND OR join the United Daughters of the Confederacy (or the sons of the Confederacy).I am fully eligible as my maternal great grandfather was injured fighting with the Texas Cavalry at Gettysburg. He received an American Civil War pension from I believe it was the state of Texas. After he died my great grandmother received the $3.00 per month the rest of her life. I have his sword.
What gets me - as someone who lives in that part of the world where scorpions are found - is how anyone could think of calling something theoretically designed to promote peace in the community after a beast that is dedicated to the opposite. When you see a scorpion, you do one of two things - move away from it or kill it. There's no negotiating with a scorpion.
As to the five oxygen thieves who would have made the world a better place had they never been born, and their murder of an artist, I'm left with "If my thought dreams could be seen, they would put my head in a guillotine."
As to the LAPD, I've watched their crimes since 1967 with their first police riot. I''ve been around for all five "major reforms" each coming quicker after the one before to fix the unreformables from the last reform. I've gotten off jury duty here, telling the DA that I wouldn't believe a member of the LAPD if they testified it was the day it is. All the reforms in the world aren't going to change that they were created in 1880 to terrorize the "stolen from" and protect the thieves. The thieves whose names are on streets here - Whittier, Nordhoff, Van Nuys, the rest of the scum.
TC, you are so right about the name of the police unit, "SCORPION," and the violent reaction it immediately evokes, which immediately poisons its mission. A good bit of my career was spent creating new health, education and welfare programs. When our team wrote grants for a new project, we started with a name, THEN created the acronym to fit it. For example, "[Name of School]-CAN", became "Community Action Network." We CAN make a better community, and we did!! Wonder what police acronym could be made out of "LOVE."
TC, another thought: You write the screeplay, then an expert matches music to it, often to heighten the drama. What music is playing in cop cars? Should police cars be playing CALMING music whenever they have a traffic stop? Would that make any difference in their own demeaner as well as for the scared civilian's reaction? Then maybe the police really could be PEACE officers [Police Enabling A Calm Environment].
Thank you Steve for presenting my opinions and positions so well! I chose not to watch the videos. I can't take any more; I'm77 years old and still remember too well the video of the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and many that followed. I see them in my head still. From start to finish your writing was vivid enough for me, and that first quoted "note" heartbreaking! I've long hoped for the one that produces a positive change and I sincerely hope this is it; it should be. But I've said that before, I repeat it again! I hope this is the one that brings the positive change so another life wasn't ended in vain!
The cops that stood back are just as guilty of the crime. They could of stopped it.
Hearing him call for his mum, broke my heart.
Reading the introduction triggered tears.
There are horrid ppl everywhere in the community. Sadly, the places we want honour, servitude and integrity, still has evil. Cops, priests, judges, politicians etc have a grand title, but attract deplorables.
May Tyre rest in peace & may his death trigger positive change.
The thing that bothers me most of all, and maybe you will write something on this, is how after seeing countless videos like this, each more horrific than the last, I am becoming acclimated to it, that the mass shootings, the one off executions like this, are normal. Far away, in a huge country, so the new now. I am becoming acclimated to going to the gym and seeing certain people tuned to Fox on their machines, every day. Never changing, and they are the demographic we expect. They gather in groups to talk and invariably the subject relates to what is on the tv that day. And I noted once them talking about another gym patron, who was watching MSNBC. The vibe was clear. An enemy. Not one of us. Outsider, suspicious, to be left alone. We really are two countries and my forecast is in the future that comes to pass but for now we are 'going to go thru some things...' for years I think.
The only thing good about this is that Steve is articulating the situation as it is. The truth. No spin. Long have I thought that something deep in the heart of American policing is dark and has “ gone underground”. Knowing the racist beginnings of policing makes this horror even more horrible. The high jacking of the “blue line” flag by home grown terrorists just compounds the disgust.
MAGA cops and military members are heavily into the militias. We have seen proof of that in the ones on 1/6. Plus, there is evidence they steal military grade weapons and ammo from work.... think about that.
The vitriole of the cops and right-wing nuts who justify themselves in the name of some absurd and distorted notion of “law and order” reminds me of the fears that slave-holders in the South had before the Civil War. They justified censorship of the mails for fear of abolitionist material that might become available to slaves, they justified cruelty out of fear that the slaves would want to be as hard-hearted and cruel to them as they were to the slaves-- that was the fear engendered by the Haitian Revolution and Nat Turner in the early 19th century. They justified white supreacy in the name of some phantasmagoric belief that they, the white slaveholders, were the vanguard of civilization. Alll the while, they were the real barbarians. They were the vanguard, not of civilization, but of ignorance, cruelty and bestiality. With their every cruel and unthinking action, these cops and would-be supremacists prove their moral inferiority and render our society less and less civilized. They do not protect society, they destroy it from within by their hatred and cruelty. They serve only fear and anger and hatred and then they feel persecuted by those who dare to challenge them and call their critics “communists” as though name-calling their opponents somehow proves them right. The name-calling is the giveaway, however, as it has always been-- because that’s what children do. The problem is that these are children who look like adults and wield the authority and power of adults. And perhaps there is a link here between racial cruelty and the numbers of mass murders we experience in this country, including murders committed on children by other children. That is a thought that should keep us up at night.
Giving anyone dominion over another person while also giving them a badge, a uniform and a gun requires special qualities in that police offficer, running from courage all the way to empathy. In the United States you have about 18000 police FORCES. In Canada we have about 250 police SERVICES. In the U.S. you have 50 sets of laws. In Canada we have one. In the U.S. you have a gun culture. We do not. We are not without our faults and we have occasions of police extremism but violence has taken hold in America and there are few places where that will emerge more regularly than when one person has dominion, a badge, a uniform and a gun. Significant repairs are needed.
I worry that black people have been so put down, dishonored and disproportionately punished for so long that even some black people who achieve authority disrespect black people who don’t. How else could five black public servants beat a fellow black man to death. Significant repairs are needed.
I cried for him, his mother, his father, his family, this country, when I watched those videos last night. I cried again, reading what you published today. It is beyond horrific.
I still cannot imagine why they did that to him. He was janked from the car, while asking what he had done. He clearly knew what was coming, he was terrified, he complied. He tried to answer.
He clearly knew he was going to die at their hands but had no idea why.
While exploring the website where you posted your amazing photographs, I couldn't help but notice that you took many photos of bridges. Bridges are a metaphor for bringing people together. To build bridges, not walls. To bridge the gaps between us.
But I also couldn't help but think of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where officers of the law beat and brutalized other human beings on March 7, 1965, much like you were beaten and brutalized. I couldn't help but think about the way you died.
I pray that your beautiful photographs of bridges will be remembered as symbols for bringing people together, not just reminders of police brutality. I think we owe you that.
Oh, my God. Those innocent, sweet words of self-explanation of his passion for photography are deeply moving, in and of themselves. Then to think what torture this sweet soul experienced -- as you say, the last image in his mind before he died -- is so completely opposite from this lovely person, no words. No words. Just tears. I don't know how his mother can stand it, knowing that her beloved son's final words were him calling to his Mama for help. I don't know how she will live with this horrible knowledge. I won't be watching the video. Reading his sweet words is enough for me. Prayers for his mother, his family, his little son. Prayers for Tyre that he rest in the arms of Angels for as long as it takes for him to become fully healed -- emotionally, physically, spiritually healed and ready to move forward in his Soul's journey.
Tyre Nichols, Artist and Friend: "My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what i am seeing through my eye and out through my lens." Your your Vision, Tyre, your Goodness, Words, your Images, your Love, your Passion will Live On in the Hearts and Souls of millions of people who also want to Create a Better World where we See our Fellow Citizens not as enemies or targets for hatred, but as Friends. Thank You Tyre. Thank You Kathy for your Healing Words here. Thank You Steve. May we Follow in Tyre's steps and Share a Vision of Depth, Honor, Dignity, Love and Hope.
One thing that shines through all this tragedy for me is the quality of the Black people left behind, the families and friends of victims show such kindness and desire, not for revenge but for growth and understanding and peace. Your heart aches for these Mothers especially. So many times the qualities of the person lost are torn away by an event, as banal as a traffic stop, that can lead to such inhuman behavior. It needs to be bring a swift and devastating penalty. One so forceful as to make people with malice in their hearts think twice before robbing us of such a worthy young person.
Following the Mother Emmanuel Massacre here in Charleston, SC on June 17, 2015, the white population of Charleston was astounded to see family, after family, after family of the slaughtered -- gunned down during the prayer following their weekly Bible study at church -- go to the jail cell where the White Supremacist murderer was incarcerated (we don't use his name) and say, "I forgive you for what you did" and "I'll be praying for you". Our city was brought together by these beautiful people in a way that we had never been before. That warmth remains.
Read this out loud to the officers who murdered Tyre during their trial. Every juror should witness the expressions on their faces.
Jennifer freeman, That is a brilliant idea. Suggest it to the Memphis DA, perhaps?
So beautiful, Lisa. I feel some light for the first time. Amen.
These 2 videos released today have left us all grieving for America. You are all so eloquently speaking to this moment. I have 2 rather simplistic comments to add, maybe not so deep, but things we could change.
We are a military family. I am offended by all the disrespectful versions of the American flag, black, blue, trumpy, on sandals and t shirts. We should have higher standards.
Another very simple take away- why is a police unit like that doing traffic stops?
Always, love the eloquence of Steve and his subscribers.
Thank you for saying out loud what we have known for a while..the thin blue line flag has been co-opted as a way for racists to fly it on their front porch or stick it to their bumper in lieu of the Confederacy’s Stars and Bars. They want you to know they are small minded bigots and think the rest of us are so stupid we can’t read their “coded” message.
I am a native Texan and typically these days the thin blue line flag is accompanied by a trump flag and a ‘Come and Take It’ flag. Their trifecta as it were. Occasionally, they just go ahead and stick a confederate flag sticker on their bumper too. Why not?
Let me welcome you to Kevin McCarthy's district. The dissonance of knowing you are in California, but live in a place just like you described, is mind boggling. In addition to the flags you name, the Gadsden is required, and the blackened US flag (no quarter given) are frequently seen.
Central California is a very different creature from coastal California.
They fly Confederate flags in California? I drove quite a bit of historic Route 66 from Santa Monica to Santa Fe, NM in October and didn’t see any. I did fail to mention you see a lot of bumper stickers that say ‘Don’t California My Texas’.
Vicki, you aptly describe places I drive by everyday. Are you sure you haven't been to southeastern NC?
It's happening in places in Michigan, too. Three locals from my area are being held and charged for 1/6. And my neighbors, right next door, were there. I am ashamed of them.
I am not surprised, Sandra. I lived in southern Michigan for over 10 years, mostly in rural areas. Many bumpers with Confederate stickers. Now they have added to their sticker collection on their bumpers, plus BIG Trump flags. They don't seem to know Michigan was on the Union side in the Civil War.
Not in the MAGA GOP era...but, I did drive the backroads from I-85 (I was coming from Mobile, AL headed to Charlotte, NC) when I saw a sign for Warm Springs, GA.I suspected I’d never be this close again, so off the interstate onto 2 lane roads into the Georgia woods. I really enjoyed the tour of FDR’s Little White House and the warm spring fed bath facility.
However, I didn’t allow myself to be lured into stopping at a combo roadside stand where you could buy produce AND OR join the United Daughters of the Confederacy (or the sons of the Confederacy).I am fully eligible as my maternal great grandfather was injured fighting with the Texas Cavalry at Gettysburg. He received an American Civil War pension from I believe it was the state of Texas. After he died my great grandmother received the $3.00 per month the rest of her life. I have his sword.
They think we don’t see their invisible white hoods. We see them alright. And we are sick of it.
What gets me - as someone who lives in that part of the world where scorpions are found - is how anyone could think of calling something theoretically designed to promote peace in the community after a beast that is dedicated to the opposite. When you see a scorpion, you do one of two things - move away from it or kill it. There's no negotiating with a scorpion.
As to the five oxygen thieves who would have made the world a better place had they never been born, and their murder of an artist, I'm left with "If my thought dreams could be seen, they would put my head in a guillotine."
As to the LAPD, I've watched their crimes since 1967 with their first police riot. I''ve been around for all five "major reforms" each coming quicker after the one before to fix the unreformables from the last reform. I've gotten off jury duty here, telling the DA that I wouldn't believe a member of the LAPD if they testified it was the day it is. All the reforms in the world aren't going to change that they were created in 1880 to terrorize the "stolen from" and protect the thieves. The thieves whose names are on streets here - Whittier, Nordhoff, Van Nuys, the rest of the scum.
TC, you are so right about the name of the police unit, "SCORPION," and the violent reaction it immediately evokes, which immediately poisons its mission. A good bit of my career was spent creating new health, education and welfare programs. When our team wrote grants for a new project, we started with a name, THEN created the acronym to fit it. For example, "[Name of School]-CAN", became "Community Action Network." We CAN make a better community, and we did!! Wonder what police acronym could be made out of "LOVE."
Or "PEACE".
TC, another thought: You write the screeplay, then an expert matches music to it, often to heighten the drama. What music is playing in cop cars? Should police cars be playing CALMING music whenever they have a traffic stop? Would that make any difference in their own demeaner as well as for the scared civilian's reaction? Then maybe the police really could be PEACE officers [Police Enabling A Calm Environment].
Murder🥲🥲🥲and cops should spend rest of lives in Prison or GITMO…cops get fired and they just move to another state and become
Cop in new state LAWS NEED LAWS
Never ever serve as police again AND
LOSE All Benefits LOSE PENSIONS
LOSE HEALTH Benefits for entire
Families Make it financially impossible
CONSEQUENCES …nothing will
Change Until Financially Cops Pay
CONSEQUENCES and so do their
Families…black families must have
THE TALK to keep their kids safe
Nothing no talk keeps them safe and I’m sickened by this reality … white
Mothers and fathers we need to help
Walk with, ride with, talk with and
PROTECT these black kids and stop
This insanity!!! May the memories of Tyre Nichols be a blessing to the world…God Help their grief process!
I’ll be praying for healing & peace for
The Nichols family & JUSTICE 🌹😓
My heart aches and my soul hurts!
Or if police were more like this teacher (and carried a modern boombox):
https://fb.watch/ikMCfTsdBy/
This is fantastic -and what is possible! It gives me hope and inspiration. Thanks:)
Thank you Steve for presenting my opinions and positions so well! I chose not to watch the videos. I can't take any more; I'm77 years old and still remember too well the video of the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and many that followed. I see them in my head still. From start to finish your writing was vivid enough for me, and that first quoted "note" heartbreaking! I've long hoped for the one that produces a positive change and I sincerely hope this is it; it should be. But I've said that before, I repeat it again! I hope this is the one that brings the positive change so another life wasn't ended in vain!
The cops that stood back are just as guilty of the crime. They could of stopped it.
Hearing him call for his mum, broke my heart.
Reading the introduction triggered tears.
There are horrid ppl everywhere in the community. Sadly, the places we want honour, servitude and integrity, still has evil. Cops, priests, judges, politicians etc have a grand title, but attract deplorables.
May Tyre rest in peace & may his death trigger positive change.
Words fail me at this horror. Thank you Steve for yours, and for Tyree’s. He was only 80 yards from his mom’s home. There is no peace.
The thing that bothers me most of all, and maybe you will write something on this, is how after seeing countless videos like this, each more horrific than the last, I am becoming acclimated to it, that the mass shootings, the one off executions like this, are normal. Far away, in a huge country, so the new now. I am becoming acclimated to going to the gym and seeing certain people tuned to Fox on their machines, every day. Never changing, and they are the demographic we expect. They gather in groups to talk and invariably the subject relates to what is on the tv that day. And I noted once them talking about another gym patron, who was watching MSNBC. The vibe was clear. An enemy. Not one of us. Outsider, suspicious, to be left alone. We really are two countries and my forecast is in the future that comes to pass but for now we are 'going to go thru some things...' for years I think.
Shame. My heart goes out to his family. I cannot imagine their pain.
The only thing good about this is that Steve is articulating the situation as it is. The truth. No spin. Long have I thought that something deep in the heart of American policing is dark and has “ gone underground”. Knowing the racist beginnings of policing makes this horror even more horrible. The high jacking of the “blue line” flag by home grown terrorists just compounds the disgust.
MAGA cops and military members are heavily into the militias. We have seen proof of that in the ones on 1/6. Plus, there is evidence they steal military grade weapons and ammo from work.... think about that.
The vitriole of the cops and right-wing nuts who justify themselves in the name of some absurd and distorted notion of “law and order” reminds me of the fears that slave-holders in the South had before the Civil War. They justified censorship of the mails for fear of abolitionist material that might become available to slaves, they justified cruelty out of fear that the slaves would want to be as hard-hearted and cruel to them as they were to the slaves-- that was the fear engendered by the Haitian Revolution and Nat Turner in the early 19th century. They justified white supreacy in the name of some phantasmagoric belief that they, the white slaveholders, were the vanguard of civilization. Alll the while, they were the real barbarians. They were the vanguard, not of civilization, but of ignorance, cruelty and bestiality. With their every cruel and unthinking action, these cops and would-be supremacists prove their moral inferiority and render our society less and less civilized. They do not protect society, they destroy it from within by their hatred and cruelty. They serve only fear and anger and hatred and then they feel persecuted by those who dare to challenge them and call their critics “communists” as though name-calling their opponents somehow proves them right. The name-calling is the giveaway, however, as it has always been-- because that’s what children do. The problem is that these are children who look like adults and wield the authority and power of adults. And perhaps there is a link here between racial cruelty and the numbers of mass murders we experience in this country, including murders committed on children by other children. That is a thought that should keep us up at night.
Giving anyone dominion over another person while also giving them a badge, a uniform and a gun requires special qualities in that police offficer, running from courage all the way to empathy. In the United States you have about 18000 police FORCES. In Canada we have about 250 police SERVICES. In the U.S. you have 50 sets of laws. In Canada we have one. In the U.S. you have a gun culture. We do not. We are not without our faults and we have occasions of police extremism but violence has taken hold in America and there are few places where that will emerge more regularly than when one person has dominion, a badge, a uniform and a gun. Significant repairs are needed.
I worry that black people have been so put down, dishonored and disproportionately punished for so long that even some black people who achieve authority disrespect black people who don’t. How else could five black public servants beat a fellow black man to death. Significant repairs are needed.
Amen, Steve Schmidt.
I cried for him, his mother, his father, his family, this country, when I watched those videos last night. I cried again, reading what you published today. It is beyond horrific.
I still cannot imagine why they did that to him. He was janked from the car, while asking what he had done. He clearly knew what was coming, he was terrified, he complied. He tried to answer.
He clearly knew he was going to die at their hands but had no idea why.
Dear Tyre,
While exploring the website where you posted your amazing photographs, I couldn't help but notice that you took many photos of bridges. Bridges are a metaphor for bringing people together. To build bridges, not walls. To bridge the gaps between us.
But I also couldn't help but think of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where officers of the law beat and brutalized other human beings on March 7, 1965, much like you were beaten and brutalized. I couldn't help but think about the way you died.
I pray that your beautiful photographs of bridges will be remembered as symbols for bringing people together, not just reminders of police brutality. I think we owe you that.
Your friend,
Andrea
Sad and so beautifully written -thank you.
This post said it all. Thank you Steve.