Memphis gathers to mourn at Tyre Nichols' funeral

The family of Tyre Nichols will lay him to rest at a Memphis funeral on Wednesday, three weeks after he died following a brutal beating by police.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris will be among the crowds of mourners, at the invitation of Mr Nichols' family.

The service at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church follows a national outcry over the death of Mr Nichols, who is black, after a traffic stop.

Five officers, who are also black, were charged last week in his murder.

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton will deliver the eulogy for Mr Nichols. Family members of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, who were killed by police in 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis, will also attend. The funeral, which was delayed due to bad weather, is scheduled to start at 1400e (1900g).

Mourners are expected to celebrate Mr Nichols' life, instead of his violent death. The 29-year-old father of a four-year-old boy was described by his family as a "beautiful soul".

"Nobody's perfect, but he was damn near," his mother RowVaughn Wells has said.

Mrs Wells joined her husband, Mr Nichols' stepfather Rodney Wells, and Mr Sharpton on Tuesday evening at the church where civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr delivered his final speech, the Bishop Charles Mason Temple.

Mr Wells asked the public to "keep fighting for justice for my son". Mr Nichols' brother, Jamal Dupree, also spoke, telling mourners: "My little brother didn't deserve none of this at all."

Body camera footage of Mr Nichols' encounter with police released last week showed officers kicking and punching him for several minutes as he cried out for his mother.

Five Memphis officers - Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith - have been fired and charged with second-degree murder and other counts in Mr Nichols' death.

Police personnel files show a litany of previous complaints involving some of the officers, according to a local affiliate of the BBC's US partner CBS News.

Mr Haley was accused of excessive force and dislocating a woman's shoulder during an arrest in February 2021, and he received a written reprimand.

Mr Mills was also accused of excessive force during a March 2019 traffic stop that resulted in a crash, but that complaint was not upheld.

Mr Martin was suspended without pay for three days after he was accused of not properly searching two suspects when a handgun turned up on the floor of a squad car in March 2019.

Mr Smith was suspended without pay for two days for failure to maintain proper control after a vehicle wreck that left himself and another person injured in January 2021.

No prior incidents were found in Mr Bean's file.