I haven't watched the video of the killing, and haven't had the emotional energy to track the story closely -- but I looked at the photography website and was glad that I did. It feels very alive.
I definitely am not going to watch the video.
The thread linked to a documentary about US police learning de-escalation and it's striking how they constantly talk about their "troops".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66pr23xUKZc
I'm not sure how reliable this is, but someone on twitter said that there was a white cop on the scene. The black officers were fired; the white guy was only placed on leave.
His lawyer and the police are saying that he wasn't present when Nichols was murdered. He was there at the initial traffic stop, but Nichols then ran off. Nichols' killers caught up with him and killed him elsewhere.
Rudolph said the internal investigation had initially focused on the five officers who were at the "second scene" where Nichols was assaulted. Nichols had fled from a traffic stop after being dragged from his car at that initial scene. Hemphill was the third officer at the traffic stop that preceded the violent arrest but was not at the scene where Nichols was beaten, his lawyer Lee Gerald has said.
Hemphill has now also been fired https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64521857