Students discuss thoughts, solutions in Tyre Nichols Town Hall
By Aaron Wright and Nene Narh-Mensah
Students listen to guided questions during the Tyre Nichols town hall hosted by the Black Student Union on Feb. 6 (Nene Narh-Mensah/The Black Explosion)
Students and faculty gathered at the Nyumburu Cultural Center at the University of Maryland to discuss the death of Tyre Nichols on Monday. This town hall was hosted by this university’s Black Student Union.
University community members delved into debates about police brutality and white supremacy. Many audience members said Nichols being beaten by five Black officers is proof that there are issues in the police force that go beyond the race of the perpetrator.
“As far as police brutality, Black people are more likely to die at the hands of the police, period,” said Janae Young, a sophomore chemistry major and BSU’s vice president. “White, Black, anything in between in the hands of the police we are not safe.”
On January 7th, Tyre Nichols was beaten by five Memphis police officers. Nichols died three days later as a result of the assault, and the five officers were arrested on charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, and more.
What’s more, three of the officers were members of Omega Psi Phi, a Divine Nine fraternity. Brittanie Reed, a junior criminology and criminal justice major, said that she was disappointed by both the race of the officers involved and their affiliation with a Divine Nine fraternity.
“You’re a part of a group that is literally about the uplifting of Black people and the support of Black communities,” Reed said. When you go against what you kind of took an oath to do, I feel like that’s ridiculous.”
Omega Psi Phi revoked the memberships of the three former officers: Tadarrius Bean, Emmitt Martin III, and Desmond Mills, Jr, according to a statement released by the organization on Jan. 31.
Sophomore government and politics major and BSU president Mason Minus addresses meeting attendees (Nene Narh-Mensah/The Black Explosion)
The town hall hosted a number of topics for discussion, ranging from the race of the officers and what caused them to brutalize another person, to ways to change policing in America. Freshman theater and dance major William Nash believes that one way of reform can come from giving psychological evaluations to prospective officers.
“A professional psychologist should come in during their academy and see… how they react to certain situations with their mindset, beyond just having a background check,” Nash said.
However, senior Black liberation studies and performance major Kelsey Coleman believes that the solution to policing lies in questioning the intentions behind institutions of power.
“If there’s going to be an institution that’s born out of people being slave patrols, and you continue to oppress… no matter what the race of the slave patrol is… you’re going to continue treating other people like enslaved people,” Coleman said.
At one point during the town hall, many of the students expressed a level of fatigue when it came to the cycle of a Black person dying at the hand of the police, followed by public outcry, protests, faux promises of changes from elected officials, only for nothing to happen.
One student mentioned that during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, politicians were seen kneeling with Kente cloth stoles in a moment of silence for George Floyd’s death. However, the Senate hasn't passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, where it remains in limbo since September 2021.
In spite of that Coleman— who’s also president of the local 54 chapter of United Students against Sweatshops— told the audience that real change comes from grassroots organizing and uniting the community, and not from elected officials.
“We shouldn’t only be protesting assuming that ‘just because I went out in the streets and I screamed, now we’re gonna win.’ It should be a step to create visualization to the fact that there are people still resisting against these institutions,” Coleman said.