After her son Tyre Nichols died from a violent traffic stop in Memphis, Tyre Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, filed a federal civil suit against the city of Memphis and the police department.
The family is asking for $550 million for the “torture” of 29-year-old Nichols who succumbed 3 days after being cruelly beaten by the police. The 25-count complaint is written out over the course of 139 pages, and “includes allegations of excessive force and ‘deliberate indifference to serious medical needs,’ and called the traffic stop ‘unreasonable.’”
$550 million is not random—the number was specifically chosen in reference to the fact that civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated 55 years ago in Memphis. The family also wants to send a message to the city and other American cities “that continued brutalization of Black men will be wrenchingly expensive, in hopes of forcing a change in the way police officers are hired and trained.”
Attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci are representing the Nichols’ family, and held a press conference outside the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office, where Crump told reporters “This landmark lawsuit is not only to get the justice for Tyre Nichols in the civil courts, but it is also a message that is being sent to cities all across America who have these police oppression units that have been given the license by city leaders to go and terrorize Black and brown communities.”
In recent years, Crump has successfully negotiated several multimillion-dollar settlements for other high-profile civil rights cases, “including $27 million from the city of Minneapolis for the police killing of George Floyd and $12 million from the city of Louisville for the police shooting death of Breonna Taylor.”
After the press conference, Wells spoke with PBS about how “this is not about monetary…there’s not enough money in this world that can bring my son back. But things have to change. And, hopefully, this will make a change.”
“When this all happened, I was a little numb. And now everything is starting to just become real now. It’s been a long, three months. It’s been a hurtful three months, because, as I tell people, I have three other children that I have to stay strong for,” Wells said, continuing with “I tell people to keep praying for me, because their prayers are the ones that’s keeping me and holding me up. And I just try to wake up every day and deal with it day by day. And that’s all I can do. And just make sure that I continue to seek justice for my son’s murder.”