No adjective is sufficient to describe the reaction one gets from watching five Memphis police officers beat 29-year-old Tyre Nichols to within an inch of his life. He later died of his injuries in a local hospital.

“Inhumane” and “senseless” are as close as it comes. While Nichols was accused of “reckless driving,” it was an insufficient charge to cause such a violent reaction by the five cops. In fact, the 67-minute video shows Nichols posed no threat and tried to calm the officers, who were quickly dismissed from the force and their special Scorpion crime-fighting unit disbanded. In the gut-wrenching video we hear Nichols calling out for his mother, who later stated she didn’t want any protests to turn violent. All five officers have been charged with second-degree murder, two counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of official oppression and one count of aggravated assault.

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Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ new book “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States” (HarperCollins/Zondervan).

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