Boston community leaders call for peace and justice after Tyre Nichols video released
BOSTON - Community leaders in Boston are calling for peace and justice in the wake of newly released video that shows the violent arrest of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Nichols died three days later and five police officers have been charged with murder.
In Boston's South End, heavy hearts are sinking once again as young men and pastors watched the horrific video.
"I'm still shaking right now," said Harrison Clark of the Boston Community Action Team. "I think anyone that isn't shaken by the video has lost a little bit of humanity themselves."
In their frustration, they urge the community to channel anger into a call for action.
"They should know better, they should know use the force and yet that was not shown," said Alan Tanner of Prophetic Resistance Boston.
What they don't want to see is violence or destruction taking away from the message.
"What we should not do is express that outrage, that disillusion, that anxiety through violence," said Rev. Kevin Peterson of the New Democracy Coalition.
As the country is still reeling from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, they say Nichol's death shows why the fight for justice and police accountability is far from over.
"Black people by and large want protection as much as anybody else wants protection," Peterson said. "What we don't want is the police brutalizing us in ways that are disproportionate."
"Police reform can't be any scarier than what we're living in right now and what should fear people is the complacency of staying the same," Clark said.