Tag: Tyre Nichols

Joe Mazzulla offers prayer for family of Tyre Nichols, city of Memphis

Joe Mazzulla offered prayer and grief for the family of Tyre Nichols and the city of Memphis prior to Boston’s game Saturday night.

Every Boston Celtics home game head coach Joe Mazzulla addresses the media 100 minutes before tip-off. On Saturday night ahead of a tilt against the team’s biggest rival the Los Angeles Lakers, Mazzulla’s thoughts were far from basketball.

“On behalf of the Celtics organization, and my family in particular, I want to pray for Tyre Nichols,” Mazzulla said to begin his press conference, unprovoked. The killing of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old from Memphis, Tennessee, has sent shockwaves around the country in recent weeks. Nichols was brutally beaten by five police officers according to recently released police video. Nichols died three days later.

Mazzulla offered condolences and prayers for the city of Memphis and Nichols’ mother Rowvaughn Wells and offered perspective on the entire affair.

The Memphis Grizzlies, LeBron James and the rest of the basketball world react to the killing of Tyre Nichols

Enough is enough.

Protests and demonstrations have emerged across the country after the city of Memphis released body camera footage of five police officers severely beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, who died three days later.

More than 20 minutes passed before Nichols started receiving medical treatment after officers beat him and left him on the pavement, according to the Associated Press.

The officers, who were charged with second-degree murder on Thursday, have been relieved of duty. But that won’t bring Nichols back to life. Nor does it take away the sting of knowing that yet another unarmed Black man doing no one any harm has lost his life as a result of police brutality.

We’re still here as a society. This is the same pain everyone felt after police officers killed George Floyd in Minnesota. And when police officers in Louisville killed Breonna Taylor. And when Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida — and that happened more than a decade ago. It’s the same pain over and over again.

Tyre Nichols’ life mattered, as USA TODAY’s Mike Freeman writes. Nichols was a father. He was a son. He was a skateboarder. He was a regular person like the rest of us. He didn’t deserve this.

Everyone has had enough. The NBA world tried its best to put a voice to that.