Honestly, after the killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, that’s the fundamental question, isn’t it?
On the face of it, it should be an easy question to answer. The police exist to serve the community; to keep people safe, to protect our rights, to uphold the law...
And yet in Memphis on that night – as in countless other US cities on countless other nights – police officers seem to be doing the exact opposite.
Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old father, died January 10 from wounds sustained after police brutally beat him during a traffic stop for alleged reckless driving. The video of the brutal assault is horrific and has caused public outrage. Justifiably so.
The Memphis police chief described the incident as, “heinous, reckless, and inhumane.” The police officers have been fired and charged with second-degree murder, among other charges.
It would be terrible enough if this were an isolated incident of extreme police brutality, but it’s not. Police in the US killed 1,186 people in 2022 – more than any other year this past decade. And Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.
Across the US, police engage in pervasive abuse, and studies show police use force against Black people at vastly higher rates than against white people, including electroshock weapons such as Tasers, dog bites, batons, and beatings.
These are often wrongly used in situations involving problematic substance use, homelessness, mental health conditions, and poverty.
Nichols’s contact with police started with a traffic stop. It seems a “simple” thing, right? But police in the US have killed nearly 600 people in traffic stops since 2017.
In the wake of this latest killing, the public and policy makers will surely talk about police reform, but it can’t just be small changes this time.
Things like body cameras emerged from earlier reforms, but they’re clearly not enough. Even knowing they were filming themselves and each other did not stop Memphis police beating a man to death.
We need to get down to the fundamental issue: the police should be here to keep people safe, to protect our rights, to uphold the law. Maybe they shouldn’t be used for traffic stops and confronting social problems.
And maybe state and local governments should invest in other ways to advance community safety beyond policing.