In Tennessee, where authorities want to disclose footage of an arrest that resulted in the death of a driver, President Joe Biden is pleading for calm amid demonstrations.
" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tyre Nichols, 29, will be shown being severely beaten in the bodycam footage of the incident that will be released on Friday, according to the family's attorneys.
Following Mr. Nichols' passing on January 7, days after a traffic encounter, five police officers who have since been dismissed are being accused of murder.
Police have enhanced patrols in Memphis, which is rumored to be on edge.
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The Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, David Rausch, stated on Thursday after seeing the video, "I'm appalled by what I witnessed," calling the cops' behavior "simply terrible."
An attorney for the family said that Mr. Nichols, a black man, was stopped by five equally black police officers as he made his way home from photographing a sunset in a nearby park.
He was allegedly accused of driving recklessly, according to officials.
When police approached Mr. Nichols' car, the two came to blows, according to the local authorities, while he tried to run away on foot.
They said that when cops attempted to take him into custody, there was a second confrontation.
Subsequently, Mr. Nichols reported having trouble breathing. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was later classified in serious condition, according to the police.
According to a lawyer for Mr. Nichols' family, the bodycam film shows Mr. Nichols being pepper sprayed, hit with a stun gun, detained, and kicked.
He compared the event to the well-known video of Los Angeles police assaulting a black motorist named Rodney King more than 30 years earlier.
Charges against all five of the police include second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated abduction, official misconduct, and official oppression.
On Thursday, Justin Smith, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, and Demetrius Haley were all arrested and sent to jail. They were all dismissed last week; they had all joined the Memphis Police Department in the previous six years.
In a statement made on Thursday, President Biden pleaded for peace as officials were ready to disclose the video on Friday night local time.
He said, "I join Tyre's family in asking for nonviolent protest. It's fair to be outraged, but violence is never justified.
Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman to hold that position in Memphis, urged for calm in the face of what she called a "failure of basic humanity toward another individual."
Privately seeing the video of the arrest from earlier this week was the Nichols family and their legal team.
Attorney Antonio Romanucci described its contents as "a human piata." This little youngster was beaten for three minutes in an unvarnished, unashamed manner.
Attorneys for two of the former policemen declared in a news conference on Thursday that their clients intended to contest the allegations.
One of the men's attorney stated, "No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die."
On January 10, officials stated that Mr. Nichols "succumbed to his injuries," but they gave no more information. The official cause of death has not yet been made public.
His family said he will be remembered as a "wonderful child" who loved skateboarding and photography.
According to family, the single father who worked for FedEx had Crohn's illness and lost a lot of weight.
US civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton told the BBC that the alleged crime was made all the more traumatic due to the cops' colour.
He stated, "We battled to include blacks to the police force." It is more terrible than I can say for them to behave in such a violent manner.
If the victim had been a young white man, "I do not believe these five black police officers would have done this," the speaker said.
Trial attorney Adanté Pointer, who practises in California, said it is uncommon for stories about black cops killing black males to be reported.
"This case demonstrates that it is not only a white against black issue, but rather that this is a power dynamic that plays itself out regardless of the colour of the police officers," he told the BBC.