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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we get ready to talk to Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, listeners, did you watch the video of the police killing Tyre Nichols? How did you decide whether to subject yourself to that or not? Did you want to bear witness? Did you not want to traumatize yourself or just say anything you want to say? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Did you go to a protest this weekend? For anyone listening who works in law enforcement, this includes you. Did you watch the video? What are you thinking today when incidents of unnecessary police violence are revealed? What does it do to your job if you're a current law enforcement officer or to the reputation of your profession if you're a retired one? 212-433-WNYC, for anybody on any of those questions, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

About Tyre Nichols, he was not just a Black motorist, right? People say "Black motorist Tyre Nichols." He was a 29-year-old man, an avid skateboarder who enjoyed photography. A native Californian who called Memphis home. I read that he went there to make ends meet. An essential worker. How about calling him that? A driver for FedEx. Did you know that was his job, the kind of job where he would've had to go out early in the pandemic for the sake of people with more privilege who got to stay home? The father of a four-year-old.

I think it's sad and a little dehumanizing that many news reports just call him "Black motorist Tyre Nichols." He was so much more. You know by now that on January 7th, blocks from his home, he was stopped in his car by Memphis police officers. Minutes later, he was beaten so violently. He was rendered unrecognizable. Days later, Nichols was dead. You must know by now that five Memphis officers were fired by the department and now charged with one count of second-degree murder, one count of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and one count of official oppression.

That's a criminal charge, official oppression. A statement from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund president and director-counsel, Janai Nelson, reads, "The sustained and sadistic attack on Mr. Nichols puts a spotlight on a law enforcement culture of violence that cannot be divorced from the ways law enforcement routinely undermines the public safety of Black people." Joining me now to talk about, obviously, this deeply upsetting incident but also where we go from here is Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. Ms. Nelson, thank you for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Janai Nelson: Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Well, maybe we should start on some details of the case before we get into the questions of systemic versus bad apples and what kinds of change are needed. I read your five tweet thread that you released over the weekend. Some of the questions in that thread, why should we see race as a factor? I'm sorry. I'm going to have to look up the exact questions. You raised questions in that tweet thread, I apologize, that you say are unanswered in this case. What are some of those important questions?

Janai Nelson: Yes, I think there are a lot of questions, right? We should be asking ourselves, "How is it possible that we live in a society where someone could be so brutally and viciously and statistically beaten to death?" The questions that I posed over the weekend were about who else was involved. What enabled this to happen? Who were the other actors in the timeline of events that led to this horrific incident that we should be interrogating?

Who received the complaints about the SCORPION unit that we know is at the center of this attack in the days, months leading up to this moment? Were they followed up on? Who was responsible for following up to see if there were any actors in that unit that required some sort of oversight or discipline or sanction? What did the first responders do? Did they wait too long? Did they flag when Mr. Nichols arrived at the hospital that something odd was presenting in terms of how he showed up clearly beaten nearly to death at that point?

There are just so many questions that swirl that make me wonder about, I guess, the inability for so many actors in the chain of events to see the humanity of Black people, to see the urgency of the complaints and the concerns that might have been lodged. I am asking that there be a full investigation of every individual, every actor, every system that played a role in the death of Mr. Nichols.

Brian Lehrer: One of the questions you asked because, now, I have the Twitter thread in front of me. Forgive me for not having it when I started the question.

Janai Nelson: No problem.

Brian Lehrer: Who processed the police report and what did they know of the incident when they did it? Who did intake at the hospital? Was anything suspicious that they should have reported and didn't? Those questions go to the possibility of a cover-up in the initial phases after the beating, right?

Janai Nelson: That's right. I think that this was such an outrageous incident that there were opportunities along the way to intervene, to flag it. As far as I know, I believe that there have been many complaints about the SCORPION unit leading up to this moment. We know from news accounts that there was a motorist a few days earlier who complained about this very unit and said that they were subject to, thankfully, not as severe an attack, but some interaction that was inappropriate for a basic traffic stop. I wonder, had that complaint been followed up on, had there been some investigation of that, would we be in a very different position in this moment? Would Tyre Nichols still be alive?

Brian Lehrer: Why should we see race as a factor even though the officers were Black? Some people are asking that question.

Janai Nelson: Yes, this question has surfaced a lot in the wake of this and seeing who the primary persons in the attack were. I guess I asked the question back, and that is when we know that our policing system has anti-Black racist origins, what have we done to purge it of that taint? What have we done to sanitize to replace the original system with something new that recognizes the dignity and value of Black life? We've done nothing to do that. We really haven't.

We've just continued to allow this system to evolve. We've added trainings. We've nibbled at the edges in ways to rehabilitate it, but its origins are there. They center on Black criminality, the myth of Black criminality. It's no wonder that any actor who is part of that system, who's trained in that system, who's bred through that system would perpetuate that same prejudice and bias and hatred. I think that's what we saw manifesting in the attack against Tyre Nichols.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take a phone call from somebody who did watch the video. Amy in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi, I can't believe I got on. It's been over a year, I think. Every time I hear one of these horrible scenes, I wonder what is going on in police academies. What are they teaching police trainees? I hope that maybe there's somebody to cover or report in one of them who'd blow the whistle on it.

Brian Lehrer: Amy, thank you very much. There's certainly a suspicion at least that these officers were trained to behave like this. Because if you have one police officer doing something, that's one police officer. If you have two police officers doing something, that's two police officers. If you have five police officers and they're all doing the same thing that just about everybody in the world considers heinous, then you wonder if there is something systemic going on, at very least in that department and with its training.

Janai Nelson: I think that's right. There's clearly something, that code and a group thinking that took over in that incident. That seems to be not isolated to Tyre Nichols. I think his death was probably the most egregious form of that abusive power, but I don't think that it is isolated. From what we understand, this unit has been a menace in the Memphis community for the 14 months that it was in existence. There's something about either the culture or the training or the way in which they have been deputized to feel that they do not have to have any regard for the rights and the dignity and humanity of the community of Memphis that showed up in the interaction with Tyree Nichols.

Brian Lehrer: That unit that you referred to, which the police chief has now announced will be disbanded, the SCORPION team. They call it SCORPION, an acronym for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. Why would that unit be doing traffic enforcement?

Janai Nelson: Yet another question, [laughs] right? I could have added that to my thread. It's anyone's wonder why Mr. Nichols was stopped in the first place. All of the allegations seem to be unsubstantiated in this moment in terms of why he was pulled over and even if they were, right? The suggestion that he was driving erratically. If that were the case, that does not justify the response, the attack, the violence that was visited upon him when he was pulled over. Even if we take them at their word and there's been no evidence that we should, but even if we do, there's no need to have 10 officers come to a scene where a defenseless, unarmed person is being interrogated and, at that point, beaten by other officers.

Brian Lehrer: Can you talk about the nature of traffic enforcement in general? This is a context in which there exists so much anxiety for Black drivers and indeed so much potential for abuse. What can change?

Janai Nelson: That's a great question, Brian. One of the changes that we are calling for and it is an immediate change that is needed, and that is for armed law enforcement officers to be removed from routine traffic stops. If I or you have a broken tail light or a registration that's expired or if we don't signal when we switch lanes, there's no reason for an armed officer to approach us. There's no suspicion of a crime occurring. There's no danger that we are posing that's terribly imminent that requires an armed person to approach us.

That in and of itself could defuse many interactions. I will note though, in the case of Tyre Nichols, it was not only the fact that they used a taser and that they use a baton, but they use their fists, right? This doesn't necessarily solve the issue of whether someone is armed or not, but it does begin to change just the philosophy of what we think a traffic stop is and how someone should be treated. If we decide that unarmed safety officers are the right people to respond, which I believe they are, then we're suggesting that a traffic violation is important.

It's something to recognize, but it doesn't require this outsized response. We know that there's data that shows that Black people are over six times as likely to be pulled over in a traffic stop and to have that encounter with a law enforcement officer, which increases the probability of us having an interaction that can lead to a violation of our civil rights. This one step is an important one toward evolving us to a new system of public safety.

Brian Lehrer: Does any city that you know of have that kind of bifurcated traffic enforcement system where police in their patrol cars are armed, but only for other things? There are separate units who get called for traffic enforcement because there's also a lot of progressive calling for more of a crackdown on reckless driving in general because of the death toll in what they call traffic violence. Progressives want cities to get more serious about cracking down on speeding and reckless driving in general. At the same time, we have this great ongoing tragedy of what happens to people who are "driving while Black" and you're saying, "Well, those units shouldn't be on." Is any city anywhere doing this right in your opinion?

Janai Nelson: That's a really good question. There are some cities that have tried it. Interestingly, the city of Pittsburgh has a local ordinance that removes armed law enforcement from traffic stops. They're violating that ordinance as we speak. Part of it is, are the policies out there, and then are they being adequately enforced? There's an attempt to do some of this in Los Angeles, but we also know that Keenan Anderson died at the hands of Los Angeles police just in the past two weeks as a result of it or earlier this month emanating from a traffic stop. Some of this is not just about enacting the policy but making sure that it is followed and enforced rigorously. This is something that can be done.

There are cities that are advancing this, not only with respect to traffic stops but also in response to people who have a mental health crisis or quality-of-life complaints. There are several categories of incidences where armed police show up where their weapons are simply not needed, where the threat of violence is not present, and they don't need to pose that risk. That is something that we need to re-examine as a society. Who should be responding to different calls for assistance? In many instances, it's because our social services are underfunded and are inadequate that we rely on police that are very well-funded to respond to some basic needs in communities across the country.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue with Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. More of your calls and tweets. We'll play another clip of attorney for the Nichols family, Ben Crump, and another one of the Memphis police chief. Stay with us.

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CJ Davis: In my 36 years, George, I would have to say, I don't think I've ever been more horrified and disgusted. I'm sad.

Brian Lehrer: That was the police chief of Memphis, CJ Davis, on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday. Attorney for the family, Ben Crump, referred to the police chief when he was on CNN State of the Union yesterday.

Ben Crump: Immediately and swiftly, the police chief said that the community needed to see swift action. They needed to see swift justice when it was these five Black police officers caught committing a crime on tape. Well, in our community, we say this is the blueprint going forward. Whether the officers are Black or white, we expect to see swift action and swift justice even if it's a white police officer that abuse us.

Brian Lehrer: Ben Crump on CNN. We continue with Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Do you have reason to believe that the charges and the firings came so swiftly in this case because the police officers were Black and they wouldn't have been the same response from the city of Memphis had the police officers been white?

Janai Nelson: Brian, all I can say is if we look at other scenarios where there have been egregious attacks on Black people by police and the officers were white and we look at how much protest demand had to occur before charges were brought, I think that helps to answer the question. I can't say for certain in this case whether that was the motivating factor. I believe that race plays a role in so much of our public life that it would be unsurprising to me that it did play a role here.

I do think that the severity of the attack was so clear-cut that it was hard to imagine how charges would not be brought and why they would not be brought swiftly. I imagined that if these were white officers, we might be asking the question as to whether they were justified in doing what they were doing, whether he did, in fact, do anything to provoke the attack. I think we question the innocence of white officers in a different way than we do Black people generally whether they are law enforcement officers or not. I'm sure race played some role, but the severity of the attack did as well.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that we're seeing real change on how police officers are held accountable and how quickly that will deter this kind of behavior in others in multiple cities?

Janai Nelson: Well, I think we're seeing a bit of a change because we're seeing more evidence of it. The footage is undeniable. It is clear. There's little to question about what happened to Mr. Nichols. Similarly, when we see other attacks of this nature and they're caught on camera, it's hard to deny it. We do know that there are many instances where people are harassed, beaten, and otherwise brutalized by police, and it's not captured in this way.

I think that the footage makes a significant difference in helping to aid the cause of ensuring that we have more accountability of police. Even with the footage, as I mentioned, there's still a significant amount of resistance to charging officers for this type of conduct. Then, of course, we went up against the issue of qualified immunity, whether they, in fact, can mount a defense and say that, as officers, they should be protected and have an automatic defense from liability or culpability because they are law enforcement and there's a doctrine of law that protects them from prosecution.

Brian Lehrer: Listener tweets, "Respectfully framing this discussion around unnecessary acts of police violence," which was a phrase I use, "is unhelpful and misrepresents what law enforcement is here to do. They forcefully manage inequality. What the video showed was actually very ordinary. This is what cops do." How much do you agree with that statement?

Janai Nelson: Well, I'm not sure I fully understand what's being said. If the argument is that this is what we train police to do, that they control communities, that they regulate the inequality that persists in our society, I agree with that. I think that that's spot-on. We don't have, many of us, experienced police, not as protectors and persons of service but rather people who are surveilling and monitoring and controlling communities of color in particular to maintain a particular social order. I suspect that might be what that comment is referring to and I think that that's correct.

Brian Lehrer: Ernesto in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ernesto.

Ernesto: Hello, Mr. Lehrer, how are you doing? First of all, I'm Afro-Latino. On behalf of all Pan-Africans, I just wanted to say how stressful and anxious we get just always having to see this. One of the other things that I wanted to stress, I know that you had a gentleman on there who's taking over for Lee Zeldin. Would you please tell me, what was his name?

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Nick LaLota.

Ernesto: Yes, I think he said the word or the phrase "good cop" at least seven times. I have to tell you that, for me, I'll speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for most of my Black diaspora that we are so tired of hearing this phrase and how 99% of the police force is this and that and great and good and so on and so forth whenever this happens. This is not the debate.

This is not what we should be talking about. We should be talking about this young man's life. We should be talking about several men and women being dealt with in horrific ways. I get very emotional about this. Excuse me. I'm an educator. Generally speaking, I have to keep my cool in front of my sons. This is something that, really, I think needs to be addressed.

This constant need to say, "Good cop, good cop, good cop. They're good cops." It's just really, really completely missing the point, completely. We're in a serious crisis. People of our diaspora, Afro-Latino, African American, Afro-Caribbean, African, this needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed yesterday. I'm really appreciative that this young woman is here to speak it out with NAACP. Thank you so much for your time.

Brian Lehrer: Let me follow up, Ernesto, and let you continue to have the floor a little bit.

Ernesto: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: To those listeners who might be police officers themselves, who've never committed an act, anything like this, or just listeners who think, "Wait, the good cops-bad cops conversation matters because something like this does not happen every day and we need to have systemic reform."

Ernesto: That's debatable.

Brian Lehrer: You can reply, but that communities also want policing. There's a way to have good policing and not bad policing and that should be part of the conversation, they would say. What would you say?

Ernesto: Well, this is what I would say. First of all, I'm a veteran. I know many, many police officers. I know what they deal with. I understand what they go through and so on and so forth, but they also are people that I respect and that respect me and they respect communities. I'm not saying again this whole thing, but this is what I'm talking about is that, here we go. Why are we talking about this?

Clearly, just like the young lady stated, when you have four police officers murdering this other young man or when you have five police officers, the latest victim because that's what he is, it has to be. It cannot just be one or two cops. It has to be a systemic institutional issue and it has to be addressed. It has to be addressed. The way to address it is not by constantly talking about how many great cops there are.

Brian Lehrer: Ernesto, thank you--

Ernesto: The way to address it is by dealing with the people that need to be dealt with. That's how it needs to be addressed.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Ernesto. Please keep calling us. Thank you very much. Janai, Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Sewell in New York are at once denouncing the cops in this case and celebrating a sharp reduction in crime in the subways, which they attribute to more police. Is your position that the answer is not fewer police but rather better policing? Anything you want to say in response to that last caller?

Janai Nelson: Well, one, I want to thank Ernesto for bringing the humanity into the conversation and recognizing the trauma that these types of events produce in many of us, but especially those of us who have to live under the threat of these scenarios on a constant basis. In terms of the police presence being a factor in crime reduction, I think we need to ask ourselves whether that is, one, in fact true. Two, is that the only way to reduce crime? What is a more durable way of ensuring that crime does not occur in this city? Is it more police officers?

Is it funding people who will arrest people who don't have sufficient funds to pay the train fare or is it investing in communities, building economic opportunities, so that people can pay the train fares, so that they have the social and mental health services that they need, so that they are not using the subway system as a place of shelter and housing and refuge? There are many investments that we can make that would have a much more lasting impact, that would have a compounded positive effect on our city if we made those types of investments instead of investing in more police who simply regulate jail, enforce laws that perpetuate the harms that come back to our communities ultimately.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. Did you personally watch the video and do you have any advice for people deciding whether or not to subject themselves?

Janai Nelson: Brian, when I heard the news that the video was coming out and we began to hear the descriptions of what it contained, I immediately sent a note to the team of people on our staff who worked most closely on this issue. I gave them explicit permission not to watch the video because I know how traumatizing it can be. I did watch the video, not minute by minute, second by second, but I did watch it, fast-forwarded some parts for a couple of reasons.

One, it's my job to know about the things that I talk about. I felt duty-bound just in terms of making sure that I was being well-informed about the actual events. I also wanted to respect the fact that the family wanted the video to be shown and that if Tyre could live and ultimately die through this attack that I could bear witness to it. I don't think that that is the choice for everyone. I think that it is a personal one.

Frankly, if I didn't have to watch it, I probably would elect not to because it is deeply traumatizing to do it. I also watched the videos of him skating. I watched the videos of him with his friends. I saw the pictures of him lifting up his child to the sky with a hopeful glint in his eye. I feel that balancing that video with the human image of this man was what I needed to be able to balance those feelings that it certainly evokes.

Brian Lehrer: Sadly, people can protect themselves from the trauma of seeing the video if they choose, but Black and brown people in America can't protect themselves from the trauma of knowing that if they or if their children go out, get behind the wheel of a car, they have to be, as Reverend Al Sharpton put it, afraid of the cops and the robbers. In white communities, generally, you only have to be afraid of the bad guys, but there have been enough incidents like this that have been publicly revealed that it must seem like a game of roulette every time someone in a vulnerable community gets behind a wheel or even goes out for a walk. Would you comment on that as a last thought?

Janai Nelson: Absolutely, I'm glad you raised that because it is real. It's important that everyone understand. It's partly what Ernesto was saying, and that is that those of us who are Black and brown in a different respect, our API family, is also experiencing the threat of violence in different ways. Those of us who live under the shadow of a police state that could, at any moment, turn against us, whether we're walking, driving, just living as Black people in this country.

The very real possibility that a state-sanctioned actor could decide to take our lives or deal with us in a way that violates our life, our dignity is very possible. I don't think other people recognize what it is to live with that threat hanging over you and the ones you love for your entire life. That doesn't have to be. We can change that. We can make different decisions about how we allocate our taxpayer money to advance public safety.

You said something earlier, Brian, that communities want policing. I want to amend that to say that communities want safety. We want public safety. We want to be secure in our bodies, in our homes that doesn't require policing. It requires a new vision of public safety that is sensible, that is well-funded, and that is an investment in our overall security and safety and humanity.

Brian Lehrer: Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Thank you so much for giving us some time on a day when, obviously, you would be in great demand. Thank you so much.

Janai Nelson: Thank you, Brian.

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