January 30, 2023
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SANTA MARIA/LOMPOC BRANCH OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP)
NAACP STATEMENT ON THE MURDER OF TYRE NICHOLS
BALTIMORE — Today, the Memphis Police Department released footage of the brutal beating by police which led to Tyre Nichols’ death earlier this month. NAACP President & CEO, Derrick Johnson, reacted to the newly released footage with the following statement:
“I am disturbed and disgusted by the sheer brutality and lack of humanity on display in the footage released today. No person should ever be subjected to such violence, to have to call for their mother as they are being brutalized by police. This video is a stark reminder that in America, on any day of the week, a Black person can be brutally beaten to death less than a hundred feet from his home by those who are supposedly here to ‘serve and protect’ our communities. Let me be clear – a traffic stop should not result in the brutal death of an unarmed man – period.
Now that the footage has been released: how much more bloodshed will it take before Congress acts? How much more trauma and tragedy must the Black community experience in order to spark real change? The police officers involved have been expeditiously charged – but that is far from enough to ensure justice for Tyre. We need action that ensures no one must ever experience or witness this kind of violence at the hands of law enforcement ever again.
To all members of Congress: As you leave the halls of Congress today and return to your comfortable homes, take a moment to think about the pleas for mercy that Tyre cried as he begged for his mother, and ask yourself the question; what if this was your child? Your continued failure to act has left Tyre’s blood, and the blood of the countless Black lives claimed by police violence on your hands. Get up and do something. We are done dying.”
Santa Maria/Lompoc NAACP president, Lawanda Lyons-Pruitt, stated “January 7th, was another sad day in American where the system failed Tyre Nichols, the Wells family, Black America, and America. Pained, dismayed, angry, hurt, sad and disappointed that in the greatest country in the world and with our system of justice, we continue to struggle with the 245-year-old issues of systemic/institutional racism. I have repeatedly watched the video recordings of Mr. Nichols’s murder, and forever etched in my mind is the dehumanizing way he was treated, the excessive use of force, the repeated pepper spraying, the unyielding use of the baton, the kicking and stomping, and his cries for his mom. How could he possibly surrender? Surrender for what? To be beaten to death? Surely, he was confused! Yet, these five officers who took an oath to protect and serve, had NO MERCY, with a holier than thou attitude, beat him to death!! As I said in 2020 when Derek Chauvin brutally knelt on George Floyd neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, asphyxiating him, it is TIME NOW for individuals and communities across the nation to examine themselves and stop beating around the subject of systemic/institutional racism, racial hatred, discrimination, inequalities and inequities. They EXIST, are REAL and obviously matter to those in positions of power.
Some have said, they will not watch the video recording. My question is why not? Is it too shocking to your senses to wake up and realize that if you have a Black or Brown child your child is likely to be dragged from the car for “reckless driving” and murdered?; or that your 17 year old Black son who has on a hoody and walks to the grocery store to get candy will be followed because he is suspicious and is fatally shot and killed?; or your son is jogging through the neighborhood is followed and murdered, simply because of the color of his skin?; or your daughter is sleeping in her bed and her apartment is raided on a no knock warrant with police entering with a battering ram firing 32 shots blindly into her apartment and she is struck and killed?; or this is the state of America that you live in where systemic racism, racial hatred and discrimination occurs against Black and Brown people daily?
In a quote attributed to founding father, Benjamin Franklin, Athenian law maker, Solon, and others, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” Be outraged and be more outrage and view the view the video!
The Santa Maria/Lompoc Branch of the NAACP extends our deepest condolences to the Nichols/Wells family and call on all Americans to remember Tyre Nichols, his family and this brutal murder. We further call on Congress to “reimagine policing” and pass The George Floyd Justice Act, now. In closing, we remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “how long, not long” and we continue to wait for Justice.”
Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization found to address existing racial and ethnic disparities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue at naacp.org and the Santa Maria-Lompoc Branch work at santamarialompocnaacp.org.
Lawanda Lyons-Pruitt, President
Phone: (805)-448-7869
Email: lyonspruitt@msn.com
BECOME A MEMBER TODAY!
www.santamarialompocnaacp.org