ROANOKE, Va. – Members of the Roanoke NAACP Youth Council were joined by local leaders and law enforcement to share their thoughts on the Tyre Nichols videos.
The videos which were released on Friday, show multiple Memphis police officers beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols. Nichols would die of his injuries just days later.
Jayvon Tucker is the President of the youth council and said it doesn’t matter that the police officers were Black because he believes there is an issue with the system.
“How much longer are we going to sit back and keep begging and praying that one day our elected officials and our justice system will do their taxpayer job,” Tucker said.
Roanoke City Sheriff, Antonio Hash, shared his frustrations watching the videos. He said he’s disappointed to watch law enforcement act in that way.
Phazon Nash once was the President of the youth council and said his mother’s biggest fear is for him to get pulled over. He also said there is a systematic issue.
“When Black people get together and we advocate and we say things like ‘defund the police’ or we say ‘Black lives matter versus blue lives’ … it’s not necessarily talking about the officers, we’re talking about the fundamental institution that is law enforcement here in our country,” Nash said.
Tyre Nichols was laid to rest on Wednesday afternoon. Watch his full funeral here.