The soon-to-be-released police video depicting five officers viciously beating Tyre Nichols will remind people of the Rodney King incident, according to the Memphis police chief.
The city of Memphis and the nation on Friday awaited the release of a video showing police beating Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man whose death prompted murder charges against the cops.
The video was expected to be released early Friday evening.
"The Tyre Nichols video is 'about the same, if not worse' than the video of Rodney King being beaten, Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis tells CNN. She says it will be released on YouTube tonight," CNN's Kaitlan Collins tweeted Friday.
In 1991, four Los Angeles police officers were videoed brutally beating motorist Rodney King. The incident and eventual acquittal of the officers ignited widespread riots and protests.
The Memphis officers were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Nichols, a motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a Jan. 7 traffic stop.
Davis said she expected protests after the release of the video, which she described as "heinous, reckless, and inhumane," but she also urged the community to remain peaceful.
Nichols' stepfather, Rodney Wells, told CNN that "one officer kicked him like he was kicking a football, a couple of times."
"They have this little like stick, this metal thing that they pull out," Wells told CNN. "They pull out — like an antenna. I saw them pull that out and started beating my son with it. And I saw officers hitting on him, I saw officers kicking him."
Wells added that "maybe 10 officers on the scene and nobody tried to stop it."
The five officers, who are all Black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
Nichols' mother told CNN that bad police officers need to be held accountable regardless of their race.
"People try to say Black people, we only try to go after white officers. That's not true. We don't care what color the officer is. We want bad officers taken off the force," Nichols' mother, RowVaughn Wells, told CNN. "We know there's a lot of great officers, I know ... but there are bad officers, too. And those are the ones that we need to get rid of.
"I don't care what color police officer, but by [the accused officers being Black], it hurt the Black community. They have brought shame to their own families. They have brought shame to the Black community."
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