Bodycam footage shows Tyre Nichols calling for his mother as he is beaten by officers before his death

Memphis Police has released bodycam footage showing the moment Tyre Nichols called for his mother as he was beaten by five officers before he died.

The footage shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack.

Police have released four separate videos cut into one hour-long clip.

Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis told reporters it was from “three different streams”.

She said: “It’s three different sources: body-worn camera, an actual source right there at the scene where the most physical you know abuse occurred and then two other body worn cameras from the officers at that same scene.”

Ms Davis had earlier asked for calm before the video footage was made public.

“I expect you to feel what the Nichols family feels,” she said. “I expect you to feel outrage in the disregard of basic human rights.”

In the footage, one camera shows the initial police stop at an intersection.

“I’m going to baton the (expletive) out you,” one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Mr Nichols.

After the first officer roughly pulls Mr Nichols out of his car, the FedEx worker can be heard saying, “I didn’t do anything,” as a group of officers begins to wrestle him to the ground.

“Get on the ground!,” one officer yells, as another is heard yelling: “Tase him! Tase him!”

Mr Nichols calmly replied soon after being wrestled to the pavement, “OK, I’m on the ground.”

Moments later, as the officers continue to yell, Mr Nichols says: “Man, I am on the ground.”

An officer yells: “Put your hands behind your back before I break your (expletive).”

Moments later, an officer yells: “(Expletive), put your hands behind your back before I break them.”

“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Mr Nichols says loudly to the officers. “I’m just trying to go home.”

“Stop, I’m not doing anything,” he yells moment later.

The camera is briefly obscured and then Mr Nichols can be seen running as an officer fires a Taser at him. The officers then start chasing Nichols.

After the beating, officers milled about for several minutes while Mr Nichols lay propped up against the car, then slumped onto the street.

Footage from one of the cameras shows police apprehend Mr Nichols and start beating him.

Mr Nichols is heard shouting for his mother while police attack him.

The father-of-one is then pepper sprayed and punched in the face.

Memphis Police chief Cerelyn Davis has officers were “already ramped up, at about a 10” during the initial stop. The officers were “aggressive, loud, using profane language and probably scared Mr Nichols from the very beginning”.

“We know something happened prior to this officer or these officers getting out of their vehicles… just knowing the nature of officers, it takes something to get them amped up, you know, like that. We don’t know what happened,” she said.

“All we know is the amount of force that was applied in this situation was over the top,” Ms Davis said.

She also described the officers’ actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane,” and said that her department has been unable to substantiate the reckless driving allegation that prompted the stop.

Cities across the country braced for large demonstrations after the release of the video. Mr Nichols’ relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully.

US President Joe Biden has said in a statement: “Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death. 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.

“My heart goes out to Tyre Nichols’ family and to Americans in Memphis and across the country who are grieving this tremendously painful loss.”

He added: “Violence is never acceptable; it is illegal and destructive. I join Mr Nichols’ family in calling for peaceful protest.”

US correspondent

Sometimes, there are no words.

Articulating the loss of a son can stretch the vocabulary in the best of times.

The family of Tyre Nichols find themselves in the absolute worst.

What words can convey how it feels to have a son, your son, battered to death on camera?

As hard as anyone tried at a news conference inside Mount Olive Cathedral in Memphis, maybe the job was done best by Tyre himself.

At the end of the video, he is heard to call out for his mother, three times.

This, a mummy’s boy who had her name tattooed on his arm.

They are his final words on footage that shows him becoming limp, unconscious and clearly in distress.

He was surrounded by police and other medical specialists who stood back rather than stepped in.

His final words were a plea to someone he knew would help, his mum, who lived three blocks from where he was beaten.

RowVaughn, Tyre’s mother, wasn’t aware of it until it emerged on the video. She only knows now because she’s been told – she can’t bring herself to watch the images.

“You have no clue how I feel,” she told a news conference when asked about her son calling out for her.

And, of course, we don’t.

But we are asked to consider how we would feel – by the sense of helplessness and lack of humanity aggravated by the desperate cry of a grown man to his mother.

It helps an audience empathise, as well as sympathise, and that’s important amidst the demands for change.

The case of Tyre Nichols moves us to ask important questions around police culture in the United States.

Mr Biden also said he spoke with Mr Nichols’ mother RowVaughn Wells and his stepfather Rodney Wells.

He continued: “There are no words to describe the heartbreak and grief of losing a beloved child and young father. Nothing can bring Mr Nichols back to his family and the Memphis community. But Mr and Mrs Wells, Mr Nichols’ son, and his whole family deserve a swift, full, and transparent investigation.”

Before it was made public, Mr Nichols’s family said the “very horrific” footage showed officers savagely beating the FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault their lawyers likened to the Los Angeles police attack on motorist Rodney King in 1991.

Five sacked officers, who are all black, have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes, including assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression, over Mr Nichols’ death.

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who is representing his family, said when the public watches the footage they will see him calling out for his mother.

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