“Doesn’t matter what color those police officers are. The murder of Tyre Nichols is anti-Black and the result of white supremacy.”
So tweeted star freshman Democrat Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida Friday night upon the release of Memphis police video of the brutal murder of Black motorist Tyre Nichols at the hands and feet of five Black Memphis police officers earlier this month in a traffic stop turned deadly beatdown.
Frost later deleted the tweet without explanation. The screen capture posted below shows the tweet had over 1 million views before it was taken down by Frost.
Frost posted another comment on Tyre Nichols that remains online, “Just saw the video of the lynching. Those police beat Tyre Nichols to death. The change required to build an equitable system will require more than training and body cameras. They bludgeoned him to death while the cameras were on. He should be alive.”
Frost also posted on his Congressional Twitter account, “I’m heartbroken, enraged, and disappointed. No one should die for being pulled over in this country. Tyre deserved so much more, a full, long life and a peaceful end. Instead, he was beaten to death, made victim of an inherently broken system.”
Frost was not alone in blaming racism for the death of Nichols. Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), now a CNN commentator, tweeted Friday night, “If you think the Memphis police officers had to be white in order to exhibit anti-Blackness, you need to take that AP African American Studies course Ron DeSantis just banned.”
Fellow CNNer Van Jones also blamed racism.
UPDATE: Frost posted a thread Saturday night expounding on and explaining his deleted tweet, “I deleted an initial tweet I wrote on this last night because I wanted to add more context to it and write a full thread in the spirit of education for those who were curious in actually learning.”
“Doesn’t matter what color those police officers are. The murder of Tyre Nichols is anti-Black and the result of a system built on white supremacy…Diversity in police ranks has not solved the crisis of policing where Black people are the prime targets of brutality and incarceration…They’re more likely to be arrested and jailed for the same crimes committed by white people. They’re more likely to be convicted for a crime. They have longer jail sentences. And they’re far less likely to get parole – all for the same crimes committed as white people…To deny the anti-Blackness and white supremacy undergirding our justice system is to blind yourself from reality. We need a completely holistic, top-to-bottom approach to ensure justice in our country and accountability for actors in these systems…Congress must make it their mission to change the way public safety operates in America. People’s lives are on the line and I will do everything in my power to move this forward…t’s no shock that Fox News went after me for calling this out. We constantly hear from its hosts that racism doesn’t exist, White Supremacy isn’t real, and that we’ll all be better off if we stop talking about race…I deleted an initial tweet I wrote on this last night because I wanted to add more context to it and write a full thread in the spirit of education for those who were curious in actually learning.”