Tire Nichols’ family prepares his funeral

A portrait of Tire Nichols, at his funeral, on January 17, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The family of Tire Nichols was scheduled to bury him Wednesday, three weeks after he was fatally beaten by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop.

In these weeks, five police officers were fired and accused of murder, and the special unit of which they were part was dismantled. Two other officers have been suspended. Two Fire Department EMS workers and a lieutenant have also lost their jobs. And there could be more sanctioned.

But on Wednesday it will all revolve around Nichols, a 29-year-old skateboarder and hobbyist photographer who worked as a FedEx box assembler, made friends on visits to Starbucks, and greeted his mother and stepfather with a cheery “Whoa! Hello parents!”.

Nichols was the youngest of the family, born 12 years after his youngest brother. He had a 4-year-old son and was working to improve as a father, his family said.

Nichols grew up in Sacramento, California, and loved the San Francisco 49ers. He came to Memphis just before the start of the coronavirus pandemic and stayed there. But he was happy with it because he was with her mother, RowVaughn Wells, and they were very close, she said. He even had her name tattooed on her arm.

Friends who attended his funeral last week described him as cheerful and good-natured, smiling and often joking.

“This man would walk into a room and everyone would love him,” said Angelina Paxton, a friend who traveled from Memphis to California for the funeral.

The service will be held at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Priest Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network will deliver the eulogy. Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing the Nichols family, will issue a call to action.

Sharpton gathered the Nichols family and local activists Tuesday night at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in Memphis, the historic site where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his last speech the night before he was assassinated nearly 55 years ago. years.

According to the reverend, the family wants to celebrate a “dignified funeral, not a marathon.”

“This is not about politics, this is about justice,” he said. “People will come from all over the world and they come because now we are all Tyre.”

Among the attendees are expected to be the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris; Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd.

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Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

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