News - World: US Vice President Kamala Harris flies to Memphis to attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols, a Black man, who died last month after being beaten savagely by the state's police officers.

Harris addressed the funeral ceremony on Wednesday, sympathizing with the survivors and slamming police brutality.

"This is a family that lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe," she said.

Nichols, 29, arrived at a hospital in critical condition after he was repeatedly pummeled with punches, kicks, and blows from a baton, during a January 7 traffic stop, and died three days later.

"Tyre Nichols should have been safe," Harris added, urging Congress to help reign in police misconduct by passing a policing act, she has co-authored, which has been named after George Floyd. The Black man was murdered similarly at the hands of law enforcement in 2020, sending shockwaves throughout the nation.

"...we should not delay and we will not be denied. It is non-negotiable," the vice president concluded.

On Monday, the Memphis Fire Department said it had fired two emergency medical technicians dispatched to the scene of the police's fatal beating of Nichols, after finding that the paramedics had failed to render adequate medical care to him.

The move came hours after the Memphis Police Department disclosed that seven of its officers had also been relieved of duty for their roles in the confrontation that led to Nichols' death.

Nichols' funeral was also attended by civil rights leaders, including Rev. Al Sharpton, who decried the officers beating the victim as "thugs" and traitors to the civil rights movement.

Source: Press TV