Even before the city of Memphis released video of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols’ brutal beating during a traffic stop, the five city police officers involved were given a familiar moniker: bad apples.
So it was in Baltimore following the in-custody death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in 2015, and in Cleveland after an officer there shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014, and in Louisville, Kentucky, following the 2020 shooting death of 25-year-old Breonna Taylor during a “no knock” police raid, and even in Los Angeles when video showed officers beating Rodney King in 1991.
It’s always the bad apples. So many bad apples.
