And what many feared would be a night of violence was largely peaceful, with protests across the country in New York. Three people were arrested, one for breaking the windshield of a patrol car.
But overall, what we saw were calm and peaceful protests Amara. I want to bring in CNN's Sara Sidner to this conversation here in Memphis.
And Sara, you spent the night with protesters. You visited the scene where we watched that horrible video where all of that unfolded when you were with the protesters.
They got on the interstate. What were they sharing with you? What were they calling for? You know, they wanted people to see them and see what had happened here and make sure that the community, not just here, but around the country, understood that there is a problem with policing and that they wanted to see changes. And they talked about whether or not they were satisfied.
I guess, if you will, with the charges, satisfied with the response from the police department for the firings of the officers, which came very swiftly, and then these charges, which included second degree murder, aggravated kidnaping, aggravated assault.
But, you know, when they saw the video, they just felt there's so much more that has happened before this that could have stopped this.
And so they're unsatisfied with what has happened here. I know everyone has been praising the police chief and praising the D.A. for going forward with charges so quickly, because that is unusual.
And we've seen many cases where it's taken up to a year for anything to happen and sometimes nothing at all. But when they saw the video and they knowing what has happened to some of them in the past with their interactions with police, they were unsatisfied.
They said this should never have happened. And because things weren't done before this happened, to some of these units, like the Scorpio unit, we have this situation where a 29 year old who was a free spirit ends up losing his life.
So there was anger, there was frustration, there was a lot of pain, but there was no destruction.
There was no violence. They disrupted traffic. They moved on after an hour or so.
And that was the end of it. It has been a very peaceful, mostly prayerful time here in Memphis. But they want to see major reforms and they want to see it now.
And the family's attorney, Ben Crump, pointed out that only a few days before the incident with Tyree, another person in this community had complained about that Scorpion unit saying that they had used excessive force on him.
What is the sense that you're getting from the community and from leaders in the community about how likely change is to come? Well, we're getting a clue when it comes to particularly the Scorpion unit.
The police chief has basically put that unit on hold. The unit was put in place for crime suppression. The family and
their attorneys say it turned into oppression of citizens. They were just sort of after people in their minds looking for people as suspects instead of looking at people as citizens. And so right now, that has been put on hold.
What the family is asking for is that and their attorneys is that they disband this group altogether. Whether or not that will happen, we do not know.
But there is sort of an investigation they put on hold underway and you may see more people either lose their jobs or be put on administrative leave beside those two sheriff's deputies, because I think we counted more than nine people who were out there at the time.
There's also the question that sticks in everyone's mind, the fire members of the fire department who were there. They are they're not as law enforcement.
They are there to save lives and help. And if that's not what they did and just sit around then that is why they have been, you know, sort of they haven't been fired yet because they have to go through a process.
But there is a lot of questions, sort of the duty to intervene and the duty to do their work to try to save someone. So there's a lot of questions here.
Imagine you're a person going through this and the people sent there to to to be the rescue do nothing.
That really hurt a lot of people as well. It was one of the most painful parts of watching all of that footage that as they're holding on to him and beating him when he presents, no threat to any of the officers around him. Nobody intervenes.
And then he's just slumped over and it appears negligent. It appears that they're not actually tending to him as they're talking about what happened.
Sir, I'm curious to get your perspective on this, because as we noted before and we were talking to defense attorney Shan Wu earlier this morning, he makes the case that there was nothing in the footage that shows a provocation or a threat that Tyree poses at any moment.
In fact, if this was a traffic stop, why are they pulling him out of the car to begin with? Right. Have you gotten any indication from perhaps law enforcement or from defense attorneys that there might be some explanation for how aggravated the officers were as they approached the scene? The simple answer to that is no from the D.A., no from the police. They have not found evidence leading up to this to in any way, shape or form that there was a reckless driving and be any reason for this to get so hot so fast and be so aggressive.
What you do hear on the tape is officers sound very angry when they pepper spray because the pepper spray blows back in their face and they blame it on Tyree Nichols. Not on themselves. The ones that sprayed the pepper spray so close up, they blame it both to officers. You hear them blaming Terry Nichols for this. So you could hear the sort of swell, the heightened emotions. And one person described this as in their minds, they looked like a pack of wolves. The group mentality happened.
There was a gang mentality that happened. And they just all of them in a fury went after him. And you can hear him saying you're doing too much, like, what are you doing? What did I do when he's screaming for his mother? And this will sit with me for the rest of my life when he's screaming for his mom and saying it over and over again, she's about 80 yards away. She said And she truly believes he actually was hoping she could hear him and she couldn't be there for her son in his last moments.
And that will never leave her mind. And she said, I don't even know how to process that. And who would. Right. Before we go, Sara, I just want to make sure that for our viewers who have watched that footage, it's agonizing but we do want to share who Tyree Nichols was and paint him in a different light than just the person that the victim that you see in that footage. You mentioned that he was a free spirit. His mom talks about him being a photographer who like to photograph sunsets. She said that he was a skater. What else stands out to you when you hear those details from his family? You know, we went and looked.
He has a photography site where he would regularly go out and take beautiful pictures of Memphis. But when the sun is setting and they are beautiful pictures, he that was his passion. He was working at FedEx. He was working, by the way, with his father. They both worked at FedEx. And the thing that also stuck with me is that he would come home almost every night for dinner with his family.
He'd walk in and say, hi, family. And she says, I'll never hear that again. And I don't know how to live with that. That is such a painful note. Sara, thank you so much. We know there might be demonstrations later. So look forward to your reporting on that. Always appreciate being on site for us.