The family of Tyre Nichols said Congress is responsible for Black Americans killed at the hands of police because of a lack of progress on police reform.
Nichols' mother, Lowborn Wells, gave an emotional speech to reporters on Friday, joining civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and other families who have lost loved ones to police violence to explain why police reform has stalled.
“When George Floyd was killed in front of the whole world in 2020, we thought that because the world watched, our children would not die again from police violence,” Wells said. “But three years later, my son, Tyre Nichols, was killed by five Memphis police officers. He was beaten to death.”
“I say to Congress, the blood of these murdered children, and of all our children, is on your hands.”
Three of the five former officers involved in Nichols' death are currently on trial in Memphis.
House Democrats have attempted to push through sweeping police reforms since Floyd's murder in 2020. The George Floyd Police Justice Act, which would have made it easier for the federal government to prosecute police misconduct cases, eliminated qualified immunity for law enforcement and banned the use of chokeholds and no-knock warrants, has been amended to include the Tyre Nichols Duty to Intervene Act.
But the bill has repeatedly stalled in Congress.
“We haven't had systematic police reform in the United States since Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society Act of the 1960s,” Crump said.
He added that black Americans who have been brutalized since at least the 1980s, after the beating of Rodney King, have wanted systemic police reform, but others, including Floyd, Nichols and Michael Brown, have been killed since then.
“I can't imagine how many families like Sonia Massey and others could have avoided having their loved ones become just another hashtag if those reforms had been made,” Crump said. “America, how much more evidence do we have to show before you reform these officers?”
The Georgia Floyd Police Justice Act was most recently reintroduced this year by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who passed away in July.
It's unclear who will replace Jackson Lee, but Vice President Harris has vowed to sign the bill if Lee wins in November. Horsford, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the group is united in its efforts to get the bill passed.
“As chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, my message to the families is that we're still fighting, we're still working, and I want all of you to know that we're not going to stop fighting for you and those who've lost loved ones until this bill is passed,” Horsford said.
