The funeral for Tyre Nichols is set to be held in Memphis on Wednesday, roughly three weeks after he died following a beating by police that was caught on video and sparked a wave of protests and calls for accountability nationwide.
The Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver Nichols' eulogy, and Ben Crump, an attorney for Nichols' family, will give a "call to action," organizers said.
Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend the funeral at the invitation of Nichols' family. Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, are also expected.
Services at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis are scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. Central Time. Organizers said the funeral would be livestreamed on Facebookand YouTube.
Nichols died on Jan. 10, three days after he was brutally beaten by police during a traffic stop. He was 29.
Body-camera video shows officers pull over Nichols on Jan. 7 on suspicion of reckless driving. They yank Nichols from his car and try to arrest him, but he flees.
When police finally catch up with him at a second location, officers kick him, hit him with a baton and repeatedly punch him in the head in a violent encounter also captured by a surveillance camera nearby.
Five Memphis police officers have been fired and charged with Nichols' murder, and two other officers are facing discipline. The city's fire department fired two EMTs and a lieutenant. The Memphis Police Department also disbanded the specialized unit whose officers beat Nichols.
Nichols' death has garnered national attention and drawn comparisons to other instances in which Black people have been killed at the hands of police, including Taylor and Floyd. President Biden said the video of officers beating Nichols left him "outraged and deeply pained."
An avid skateboarder, Nichols had a 4-year-old son, worked at FedEx with his stepfather and had a tattoo of his mother's name.
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