'The one I want y'all to remember': Tyre Nichols honored one year after fatal police beating

A year ago Sunday, Tyre Nichols was pulled over by officers with the Memphis Police Department, and beaten.

Nichols, 29 at the time, would be taken to the hospital in critical condition for his injuries and would die three days later.

Sunday evening, about 100 people gathered with candles at the intersection where the beating took place to honor his memory.

"A year ago today, I lost one of the most precious things that God has ever given me," RowVaughn Wells, Nichols' mother, said to the crowd. "2023 has been a very difficult year. People ask me all the time how am I continuing to stand. I tell them that the people of Memphis — you guys, your prayers that we have received — has kept me and our family going every day. This is the first year without my son."

Wells stood at a podium in front of candles that spelled out "TYRE." The candles were placed near the street sign where he could be seen on pole camera video being beaten by officers. The podium was surrounded by "Justice for Tyre" signs, pictures of Nichols when he was alive and images of Nichols while he was in the hospital after the beating.

"See? This is what Tyre looked like when I walked in the hospital" RowVaughn Wells, Nichols' mother, asked the crowd while holding a picture of her son in the hospital. "Does this look like some Taser and some pepper spray? No, it don't. This is what my son looked like. He died right here."

Wells eventually picked up a selfie of Nichols from before the beating, where he was smiling, and compared the hospital image to it.

"Y'all see this man? This is my son, Tyre," Wells said. "See this boy? Do that look like the same child that's in that picture?"

"No ma'am," some voices in the crowd could be heard saying.

"This was my son," Wells said through tears. "This is the one I want y'all to remember. I have never seen that video. I will never see that video... I want to remember my son in that picture. I don't want to remember my son in this [hospital] picture.

"This is Tyre," she said, tapping the selfie of Nichols. "This is the sweetest child."

The vigil's crowd included a number of public officials, including Memphis Mayor Paul Young and MPD Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis, in plain clothes. After the vigil had ended, Davis and Wells hugged and exchanged words. Ben Crump Law Firm representative Kareem Ali said this was the first time the two had spoken since the city released video of the beating.

The vigil lasted about an hour, with activists and family speaking about Nichols. One official in attendance, Rep. Justin J. Pearson, was also present. He turned 29 years old Sunday, and spoke at the vigil.

"Tyre should be here," Pearson said. "There is nothing that our city, the Memphis Police Department, can say to change that reality. Mama Wells and Daddy Wells shouldn't be mourning for the loss of life of a 29-year-old, beautiful Black son. Today, January 7, is my birthday. Today, I turn 29. Tyre and I are the same age. Same age that Tyre was when he was here, trying to get home. I have been caught up between knowing this commemoration is happening and the celebrations about birthdays, and all those good things, trying to find understanding and meaning."

More: 'Sacrificed for the greater good': the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis

Nichols was pulled over for what was initially described by the Memphis Police Department as reckless driving, though that allegation would later be recanted by MPD Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, saying there was no evidence to suggest he had broken any traffic laws.

The reason for the stop, even a year later, is still unknown, even as three separate sets of litigation are underway.

"January the eighth, [the police] considered him a suspect," Wells said at the vigil. "It was 'a suspect ran from the scene.' Then, three days later, he was 'Mr. Tyre Nichols.'"

Five of the officers involved – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Emmitt Martin and Justin Smith – were criminally charged at the state level three weeks after the beating. Their state criminal charges include second-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping.

Those same five officers would eventually be indicted at the federal level on alleged civil rights violations. All five were charged with using excessive force, witness tampering, conspiracy to witness tamper and deliberate indifference.

The federal charges qualify each officer for the death penalty, but the DOJ said they opted to remove that possibility leaving a maximum sentence of life in federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system.

One officer, Mills, entered a guilty plea in the federal case and the U.S. Department of Justice suggested he serve 15 years in federal prison. He also entered a plea for his state case, though the official plea will not come until after he is federally sentenced. The state case will see Mills sentenced to the same amount of prison time as the federal case, and it will be served concurrently with the federal sentence.

The Nichols family retained notable civil rights attorney Ben Crump after Nichols’ death. Crump, alongside a large legal team, filed a federal civil lawsuit against the City of Memphis, the officers involved and the emergency medical technicians that arrived at the scene the night Nichols was beaten.

The lawsuit requested $550 million in damages, which Crump said was symbolic of $10 million for each year since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and was a message that his legal team was looking to make “financially unsustainable for these police oppression units to unjustly kill Black people in the future.”

Nichols’ death also factored into the DOJ’s decision to launch a pattern-or-practice investigation into MPD, the most thorough investigation the federal government can launch into the behavior of a police department. Similar investigations took multiple years to complete.

Community outcry after the beating also spurred local change, with the Memphis City Council passing a slate of ordinances to alter the way MPD polices. Those ordinances included requirements that the department not conduct traffic stops in unmarked vehicles, that officers should not pull over drivers for minor traffic infractions and that the department was to create a data dashboard that collected data about the demographics of people pulled over by officers.

On Dec. 29, as his term was about to expire, MLK50 reported that former Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland informed the city council through a letter that his administration had not enforced the ordinances, citing questions about the legality of the city council passing ordinances that alter the way the police department works.

Memphis’ city charter allows for the mayor to oversee the department, and Strickland cited the ordinances as a breach of the separation of powers within the city.

Days after taking office, Memphis Mayor Paul Young said during a press conference his administration planned to enforce the ordinances. After that press conference, MPD Chief Davis told reporters that the department had changed its policies to match the ordinances, and that they were enforcing them internally.

At the vigil Sunday night, Van Turner, former NAACP president and Memphis mayoral candidate, spoke about the need for the public to hold officials accountable for upholding those ordinances.

"We're going to make sure that the ordinances that were passed are put forth and carried out," Turner said. "We know the last administration said he didn't do it. We're glad that the new administration is doing it. We have to hold their feet to the fire. You have to do it. It's not on his family. Now it's on you."

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphians gather for Tyre Nichols vigil at scene of fatal police beating