The screams of Tire Nichols, a young African-American man killed by police: “Mommy. Mommy! Mommy”

The video in which you see five African-American police officers who beat Tire Nichols to death they have provoked horror and incomprehension in the United States.

Since Tyre Nichols , 29, died in early January, his family has not stopped calling for calm. And before the video was broadcast on Friday night, broadcast live and without cuts by the main television networks, President Joe Biden called his mother and stepfather and urged the population to demonstrate peacefully.

Rallies – some of dozens, others of hundreds of people – were held Friday night in Memphis, New York and Washington, with more planned for Saturday.

Robert Jones, 26, a Memphis store clerk viewed clips of the video. “I’ve heard it’s a new year, but things don’t change,” he said, referring to police violence.

“It’s horrible to see five big guys beating this man up”said Nancy Schulte, 69, a receptionist at a city hotel.

The video released by the Police shows a beating after a routine traffic control on January 7 in Memphis, in the state of Tennessee.

The police officers punched, kicked and beat the young man with batons, tear gas and a stun gun. At no point is Nichols seen trying to attack the cops. He tries to run away and is caught.

“Mommy. Mommy! Mommy,” he can be heard yelling.

Apparently, the incident occurred about 100 meters from his mother’s house and the ambulance did not arrive for 20 minutes.

Nichols died three days later at a Memphis hospital.

The five police officers were fired, charged with murder and sent to prison. Four of them were later released on bail.

On Friday, while expressing horror, the family said they were “satisfied” with the charges brought against the five officers and praised the “quick” action against them.

Despite the words of the Nichols family, “If the verdict is wrong, the protests will be greater,” Demarcus Carter, a 36-year-old African-American from Memphis, predicted after watching the video.

“It could have been me” instead of Tire Nichols, he added.

After the images shown in the video, there are still many questions. The clip does not show the beginning of the interaction between Nichols and the agents.

This new death after an arrest has revived the debate on police violence in the country, where the memory of George Floyd, murdered in 2020 by a white police officer, is still present, a case that led to a social crisis.

Ben Crump, one of the Nichols family lawyers, blamed “institutionalized police culture.”

“It doesn’t matter if the agent is African-American, Hispanic or white (…). There are unwritten rules that if a person belongs to a certain ethnic group, they can be treated with excessive force,” he said Saturday on MSNBC.

“This is the culture that killed Tire Nichols,” he added.