January 27, 2023 news on the death of Tyre Nichols

Attorney Benjamin Crump told CNN Friday some of the last words Tyre Nichols says on the video of his arrest are him calling out to his mother. 

Wells has not watched the video of her son’s beating, but says she knows enough about the incident that she feels sorry for the officers.

"They have put their own families in harm's way. They have brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the Black community," she said through tears. “I feel sorry for them. I really do. I really feel sorry for them, because they didn't have to do this."

Tyre weighed 150 pounds, his mother said. “And those men, if you combine their weights, they all — it was over 1,000 pounds, beating and beating a 150-pound person to death.”

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The mother of Tyre Nichols said she’ll miss his “beautiful smile" the most.

Speaking to CNN’s Don Lemon, RowVaughn Wells said, “My son had a beautiful soul and he touched a lot of people.”

“I always joke — because he'll come in the house and he'll come in and say ‘hello parents’ — and I’ll never hear that again,” Wells said. “I'll never cook for my son again. I'll never get a hug from my son again. I won’t get anything from my son again, just because some officers decided they wanted to do harm to my son.”

“No mother should have to go through this,” she added.

Tyre Nichols' mother spoke to CNN about seeing her son in the hospital after his traffic stop.

"Around 4:00 in the morning, the doctors called from St. Francis and said, 'Mrs. Wells, do you know your son's in the hospital?' And I said, 'yes, I was advised by the police officers.' He said, 'why aren't you here?' And I said, 'the police officers said that I couldn't come, because he was under arrest.' The doctor proceeded to tell me that my son had went into cardiac arrest and that his kidneys were failing," RowVaughn Wells told CNN about why she was delayed in getting to her son.

She said her son was "already gone" by the time she and her husband got to the hospital.

"Even if he did live, he would have been a vegetable," she added.

By the time she got to the hospital, she said the police officers has been "whisked away" and heard that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation " had taken over the investigation."

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In their first interview since charges were announced for the officer involved, Tyre Nichol’s parents told CNN’s Don Lemon in an exclusive interview that they are living in a nightmare. 

It’s been less than a month since her son died.

“I don't have my baby. I'll never have my baby again,” she said. “I do know that he was a good person. And that all this — all the good in Tyre will come out and so that's what keeps me going, because I just feel like my son was sent here on assignment.”

“His assignment [is] over. It's over. And he was sent back home. And God is not gonna let any of his children's names go in vain. So, when this is all over, it's gonna be some good and some positive because my son was a good and positive person,” she added.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said paramedics who were at the scene at some point during the Tyre Nichols traffic stop “failed to render proper care.”

“Based on the video, they failed to render proper care, and it's just based on my assessment,” she told CNN Friday in her first interview since the incident.

The care came "several minutes" after, she said, adding that it was “concerning for all of us, that we see a number of failures where individuals did not exercise the amount of care that we are responsible for — no matter what the cause is we are responsible for exercising care.”  

Davis noted that the fire chief also quickly began an investigation into their actions on scene.

Nichols suffered “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to preliminary results of an autopsy commissioned by attorneys for his family.

“We can state that preliminary findings indicate Tyre suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating, and that his observed injuries are consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on the video of his fatal encounter with police on January 7, 2023,” attorney Benjamin Crump said in a statement.

CNN has asked Crump for a copy of the autopsy commissioned by the family, but he said the full report is not yet ready. Officials have also not released Nichols’ autopsy.

CNN's Alisha Ebrahimji contributed to this post.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said the department will release the video of Tyre Nichols' traffic stop in four parts on YouTube.

“The video is broken into four different sort of fragmented pieces,” that are all relative to the incident, she told CNN Friday.

The department plans “to post it on a YouTube link so that it can be accessible to just about anybody who wants to access that video,” Davis said.

The video will show the initial stop, the stop near Nichols' home, and also body-worn camera of individual officers, she noted.

Davis said the video showing the beating of Nichols is as bad, if not worse than Rodney King in 1992, a motorist whose savage encounter with police sparked outrage after footage was released.

“I was in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident, and it's very much aligned with that same type of behavior," he said.

“I would say it's about the same if not worse,” she added.

In her first interview since the death of Tyre Nichols, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she learned of the incident around 4 a.m. local time the next morning after, and she saw the video of his arrest the following Sunday.

She told CNN she was “outraged" when she first saw the video. 

“I was it was incomprehensible to me, it was unconscionable. And I felt that I needed to do something and do something quickly,” she said Friday. “I don't think I've witnessed anything of that nature my entire career.”

The officers from the start of the traffic stop were “riled up,” Davis said. “There was an amount of aggression that is unexplainable.”

Davis pointed to a “group think mentality" she says she saw on the video. 

“What I saw on this video was more of a group sort of mentality, you know, a group and no one took a step to intercept or intervene and that's why the charges are so severe,” she added.

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said that the five officers indicted are all responsible for the death of Tyre Nichols.

A grand jury returned indictments against Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Desmond Mills, charging each with:

The officers are currently in custody, he added.  

Mulroy went on to explain why there are charges of aggravated kidnapping in Nichols' case.

Nichols died three days after he was pulled over for alleged reckless driving by Memphis Police Department officers, as CNN previously reported.

In a statement, police claimed confrontations ensued between Nichols and the officers. After he was taken into custody, police said, Nichols complained he was having shortness of breath and was taken to a local hospital, where he later died.