In the anxious hours before the Memphis Police Department released body camera footage showing the role five officers played in the beating death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, a palpable sense of dread over what the footage would reveal gripped many Americans.
Nichols' mother, RowVaughn Wells, told the Washington Post that she was only able to endure watching less than a minute of the fatal encounter with police,
“I have to stay strong, but it’s very difficult,” she told the Post. "And then when I walked in that room and I sat there and I heard my son’s voice — because that’s going to be the last time that I hear my son’s voice — that just did something to me. And I just had to get out."
"But what I've heard is very horrific, very horrific, and any of you who have children please don't let them see it," Wells said, adding, "No mother, no mother, no mother should go through what I am going through right now to lose their child to the violent way that I lost my child."
Her child was beaten to death approximately 100 yards from her home, and at a Friday news conference, she pleaded with other parents not to allow their children to watch it.
So close was the bond between mother and son that Nichols, a FedEx driver, avid skateboarder and the father of a 4-year-old daughter, had tattooed his mother's name on his arm, Wells later told President Biden during a phone call on Friday.
“I do know that,” responded Biden, who, at the time he talked with Wells, had also not seen the footage of the beating. “That’s what you call something special.”
For those who had seen video of Nichols being killed by police, the warnings were just as stern. FBI Director Christoper Wray didn't sugarcoat the images. "I have seen the video myself. And I will tell you, I was appalled," Wray told reporters Friday. "I'm struggling to find a stronger word, but I will just tell you, I was appalled."
For the law enforcement officials who have seen the body camera footage, like Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch, there was no other way to describe it. "In a word, it's absolutely appalling," Rausch said Thursday.
Offering his own grim preview of what could be expected, Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney who's representing the family, revealed at a Friday news conference that the world would hear Nichols' final words.
"He calls out three times for his mother. His last words on this earth are 'Mom, Mom, Mom.' He's screaming for her," Crump said. "He said, 'I just wanna go home.'"
For those who followed the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., the historical echo to Nichols' last words was unmistakable, with both men calling out for their mothers.
The historical parallels don't end there, as Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis attested in an interview with CNN.
“I was in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident and it’s very much aligned with that type of behavior … sort of groupthink. I would say it’s about the same if not worse,” Davis said in a Friday morning interview in reference to the videotaped 1991 beating King received at the hands of Simi Valley, Calif., police following a traffic stop that, when bystander footage was made public, resulted in days of rioting.
While King survived his run-in with police and their nightsticks, Nichols did not. The question that seemed to build all week was whether the latest example of police brutality leveled against a Black American — even though the five officers who inflicted it are also Black and were swiftly indicted on murder charges — would spark its own violent response.
“We’re very satisfied with the charges,” Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, said Friday. “We want peace. We do not want any type of uproar. We do not want any type of disturbance. We want peaceful protest. The family is very satisfied with the process, with the police chief, with the D.A.”
Such was the buildup to a video that no American actually wanted to have to watch, and many remained unsure they would right up until the last moment.
But as others flocked to the Memphis Police Department's YouTube Channel to await its posting, an officer recruitment clip greeted them on autoplay.
"Are you ready to start a career that's bigger than you?" the video's narrator asks over footage of Memphis' humble skyline. "If you want to be part of building a better future for yourself, your family and the Memphis community, then you should consider becoming a Memphis police officer."