Death of Tyre Nichols

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. SYKES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today during the first Congressional Black Caucus Special Order of the year to stand in solidarity with the families and loved ones in support of the safety and security of American citizens.

Tomorrow, during the State of the Union, I will be joined by Ms. Pamela Walker, a police accountability advocate and mother of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old unarmed Black man from Akron, Ohio, who was fatally shot 46 times by police in June of 2022.

Jayland Walker was just 25 years old. He was a kind, quiet, and thoughtful young family man who regularly spent time with his mother, grandmother, and sister.

He was just beginning to live his life with aspirations of starting his own business or becoming a professional wrestler.

His mother described him as the son that every mother dreams of, talked about how proud she was to be his mother.

Ms. Walker is coming to the Capitol in honor of her son, demanding accountability, public safety, and change so that her son will not have died in vain or anyone else's son. No mother should ever have to go through what Ms. Walker experienced.

Despite her unimaginable grief, she has displayed unwavering strength, dignity, and perseverance.

Mr. Speaker, we must reexamine our institutions, how they operate and are governed, without the polarizing rhetoric that only leads to division and not solutions because the longer we are divided and legislation is not passed, the more lives hang in the balance, and public safety and security is too important to play with.

We need to create a level of trust where our law enforcement officers feel like they are a part of the community, and we must also take steps to improve police accountability.

There is still much work to be done to restore trust between the police and the communities they serve. That is why I felt it was important to have Ms. Walker join me tomorrow.

Let her presence signify that enough is enough. We, as a Nation, have reached an inflection point because too many lives have been lost.

I join my colleagues in calling for robust reexamination of our policing system, wholesale public safety policies, and bipartisan national solutions to this issue before more lives are lost.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source