“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin appeared to criticize President Joe Biden on Monday for failing to pass police reform and for supporting more funding for police.
The show’s panel interviewed RowVaughn and Rodney Wells — the mother and stepfather of Tyre Nichols, who died on Jan. 7 after being beaten by Memphis police — and their attorney, Ben Crump. The five officers involved in the 29-year-old’s death were charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault and kidnapping Thursday. Body camera footage of the incident was released to the public the following day.
“President Biden … spoke with the family on Friday and promised to push for more police reform,” Hostin said. “However, President Biden has also stated that the police need more funding. Ben, why do you think no federal policing laws have passed in Congress to help prevent this kind of tragedy?”
“We think about that question often and ask that question, and it takes me back to what the great civil rights icon, Ella Baker, said … ‘Until white mothers cry just as hard when the police kill little black boys and shoot them in the back and they would had it happened to their own children, then they’re not going to see any widespread reform.’ And so, we have to continue to tell America they can’t look at Tyre as just the black son of RowVaughn Wells, they have to look at Tyre Nichols as a son of all of us,” Crump said.
Crump urged the House and Senate to address the issue of police brutality and send reform legislation to Biden’s desk. He said reform did not happen in the 1990s following the death of Rodney King, in the 2010s after the death of Michael Brown or after the death of George Floyd in 2020. (RELATED: Biden Signs Executive Order On Police Reform Two Years After George Floyd’s Death)
“How many more videos do we have to show you, America?” he asked.
The video released Friday showed the officers with the Memphis Police Department pull Nichols from his vehicle during a traffic stop and pin him to the ground until he managed to escape and run away from law enforcement. Officers later found Nichols in a neighborhood where they beat him, dragged him and lay him against the side of a car.
The police stood around for several minutes as Nichols lost consciousness and leaned onto the ground. He was transferred to St. Frances Hospital in critical condition and died in the hospital three days later.
Biden announced in a statement that he spoke with the Wells family Friday and was “outraged and deeply pained” by the beating and death of Nichols. In the same statement, he criticized Senate Republicans for preventing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act from reaching his desk. He also touted an executive order he signed in May to mandate stricter use of force rules, ban chokeholds and strengthen accountability for police brutality.