Tyre Nichols’ mother reveals police blocked her from seeing her dying son in hospital

Tyre Nichols’ mother has revealed that Memphis police prevented her from seeing her dying son in hospital.

Nichols, 29, died in Memphis, Tennessee on 10 January, of injuries sustained during his arrest three days earlier by members of the city’s police department.

His mother RowVaughn Wells told CNN that she received a call from a doctor at St Francis Hospital at 4am on the day he died to say her son’s organs were failing and to come to the hospital immediately.

“He said, ‘why aren’t you here?’ And I said, ‘the police officers said that I couldn’t come, because he was under arrest’,” Me Wells told CNN.

“The doctor proceeded to tell me that my son had went into cardiac arrest and that his kidneys were failing,”

Ms Wells told the network that by the time she and her husband arrived, her son was “already gone”.

“They had beat him to a pulp,” she said, adding that he had bruises “all over him”.

“His head was swollen like a watermelon. His neck was busting because of the swelling — they broke his neck. My son’s nose looked like an ‘S.’ They actually just beat the crap out of him,” she said.

Five police officers who arrested Nichols have been fired and charged with second-degree murder.

Memphis officials plan to release the video on Friday evening, with the police chief warning that people will see for themselves how the officers showed a “disregard for basic human rights”.

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