WP & NYT: Memphis Police Brutality Victim Was Black, But His Brutalizers Were Just Blue
07/28/2023
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Earlier by Ann Coulter (2014): Would It Kill You To Hire More Black Cops? (Yes) and by Steve Sailer: Black Cops Screw Up More

From the Washington Post:

DOJ launches civil probe into Memphis police after Tyre Nichols killing

The investigation will examine whether the police department systematically used excessive force and discriminated against Black residents

By David Nakamura and Mark Berman
Updated July 27, 2023 at 2:00 p.m. EDT|Published July 27, 2023

The Justice Department on Thursday opened a sweeping civil rights investigation into allegations that the Memphis Police Department systematically used excessive force and discriminated against Black residents, dramatically escalating federal scrutiny seven months after the police beating death of Tyre Nichols.

… Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was beaten by several Memphis officers on Jan. 7 and died three days later of his injuries in an incident caught on police surveillance and body-camera footage that was released to the public amid a widespread outcry.

Clarke said the federal probe will examine the department’s use of force, whether it has inappropriately targeted Black residents on traffic stops and whether it has discriminated more broadly against Black people.

You know and I know that all five Memphis cops charged with second-degree murder in beating poor Mr. Nichols to death are black, but do Washington Post subscribers want to be reminded of that awkward fact? Apparently not, as the WaPo avoids mentioning that, or that the MPD is majority black, throughout its 17-paragraph news article.

Similarly, the 29-paragraph New York Times article ignores the race of the 5 beaters as well:

Justice Dept. Opens Civil Rights Investigation of Memphis Police

The department will examine allegations of pervasive problems with excessive force and unlawful stops of Black residents that were amplified by the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.

By Rick Rojas
Reporting from Atlanta

July 27, 2023

The Justice Department said on Thursday that it had begun a sweeping civil rights investigation into policing in Memphis, digging into allegations of pervasive problems with excessive force and unlawful stops of Black residents that were amplified by the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in January.

In announcing the investigation, officials specifically cited Mr. Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died after a traffic stop escalated into a brutal confrontation in which Memphis police officers kicked, pepper-sprayed and pummeled him, even as he was restrained, and then failed to render aid. …

Residents and activists argued that Mr. Nichols’s case was anything but an isolated episode and was instead reflective of an aggressive approach that officers routinely took with Black people — particularly officers from specialized units patrolling high-crime areas, like those who stopped Mr. Nichols. …

An investigation by The New York Times in February found that young Black men were disproportionately targeted by the unit, according to a review of arrest affidavits in about 150 cases handled by the unit.

In the sample reviewed by The Times, about 90 percent of those arrested by the unit were Black — much higher than the share of the city’s population that is Black, which is about 65 percent. Black residents across Memphis were also three times as likely as white residents to be subjected to physical force by police officers, according to department data over the past seven years.

[Comment at Unz.com]

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