Tyre Nichols: Family remembers 'a beautiful soul'

The family of Tyre Nichols, a black man whose death following a traffic stop in Tennessee has placed a fresh spotlight on police brutality in the United States, describes him as a "beautiful soul" with a passion for skateboarding, sunsets and photography.

"Nobody's perfect, but he was damn near," his mother RowVaughn Wells said at a news conference flanked by family members and supporters.

A visibly grieving Ms Wells broke into a rare smile as she described her son having a tattoo of her name on his arm.

"That made me proud," she said. "My son loved me to death, and I love him to death."

Tyre Nichols, 29, was born in Sacramento, California, but moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 2020 just before the pandemic hit to be closer to his mother.

He was the father to a four-year-old son, and worked for FedEx for the past nine months, with his stepfather, Rodney Wells.

Mr Nichols had loved skateboarding since he was six years old, and his favourite activity was to head to the local skate park. A video montage uploaded 12 years ago on YouTube shows him coasting around and doing tricks for the camera in the Californian sunshine.

Mr Wells said he had recently joked to his stepson that he was too old to skateboard.

"You've got to put that skateboard down. You've got a full-time job now," he remembered saying. "He looked at me like 'yeah right' because that was his passion."

Mr Nichols' took his photography seriously, and had his own website dedicated to it.

Photography "helps me look at the world in a more creative way. It expresses me in ways I cannot write down for people," he wrote, signing off: "Your friend, Tyre D. Nichols."

Each night, he would go to nearby Shelby Farms Park, on the eastern outskirts of Memphis, to take pictures of the setting sun, his mother said.

That was where Mr Nichols was driving home from when he was stopped by police on 7 January. He died three days later, and five now-fired police officers - who like Mr Nichols are all black - are facing murder charges.

Three Memphis emergency workers - two paramedics and a driver - have also been fired for not providing Mr Nichols with adequate care at the scene, officials said.

Bodycam footage of the encounter with police was released on 27 January, and showed Mr Nichols being severely beaten by police.

In distress, he can be heard calling out "Mom!" as the officers kick, punch, pepper spray and taser him not far from her house, where he also lived.

US President Joe Biden said he was "outraged" by the "horrific" video, adding that it was "another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that black and brown Americans experience every single day".

On the eve of his funeral, Mr Nichols' family and friends in Sacramento held a vigil at one of his favourite skate parks, in the suburb of North Natomas.

"He just had overwhelming urge just make everyone else around him smile," fellow skater Ryan Wilson said."We just need to remember the good that he did, the person that he was. Carry that in your heart, not what happened," Kandi Green, Mr Nichols' aunt told the crowd.

Angelina Paxton, who first met Mr Nichols when they were about 13 years old at a local church youth group, said she had avoided watching the bodycam video, and only wants to remember her friend as the "happy" and "goofy" man that he was.

"He was just very laidback... everybody describes him as being goofy because he was kind of like the class clown," Ms Paxton told the BBC. "And he was just always cracking jokes and poking fun at you, and it was never in a mean way."

In Memphis, Mr Nichols quickly made a solid group of friends, and they would meet up most mornings at the local Starbucks café and talk about sports and his beloved San Francisco 49ers football team.

He was a "free spirited person, a gentleman who marched to the beat of his own drum," Nate Spates Jr told CNN. "He liked what he liked. If you liked what he liked - fine. If you didn't - fine."

The 29-year-old also had Crohn's disease, a condition where parts of the digestive system become inflamed, often causing severe weight loss. While he stood at 6'3" (190.5cm), Mr Nichols only weighed about 150 pounds (68kg) - "fairly light", as his mother said.

His slight statue is also raising questions about the force shown by the police officers.

"That's why this is so troubling to me, because you had five officers' combined weight of over a thousand pounds beating up on a young man that's only a buck fifty," Ms Wells told Democracy Now.

Speaking to the media hours before the distressing police video was released, she described the unbearable grief her family is going through.

"All I know is my son Tyre is not here with me anymore. He will not walk through that door again," she said.

"He will never come in and say 'Hello parents', because that's what he would do. I'll never hear that again."

Ms Wells added that she would work tirelessly for justice because "no son deserves this".

Mr Nichols' stepfather described his stepson as "a good kid" who was the baby of the family - he had two older brothers and one older sister.

"I was Tyre's stepfather, but you can take the 'step' out of it because that was my son," Mr Wells said of their relationship.

Mr Wells said he had watched the police incident video, describing it as "horrific" and something which "no father, mother should have to witness".

He said the family would do everything they could to seek justice, but added that anyone holding protests in Mr Nichols' name should do so peacefully, and should not loot or damage property.

"That's not what Tyre wanted and that's not going to bring him back," he said.