Sonoma County Black leaders on release of Memphis police video in Tyre Nicols arrest

Ahead of the release of police video in the arrest of Black motorist Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in Memphis, Sonoma County’s Black leaders say they are exhausted from ongoing traumas.

Nicols, 29, died Jan. 10 three days after being stopped by Memphis police and beaten in what authorities have described as a “brutal” attack. The five officers, who are also Black, were fired after an internal investigation and are facing criminal charges in his death.

“(W)e are tired,” Kirstyne Lange, president of NAACP Santa Rosa-Sonoma County chapter, said in an email “This incident erupts the continued trauma and fear that many Black folks hold because of the release of these videos.”

Love and Light, a Sonoma County grassroots organization dedicated to change, will hold a solidarity vigil on Monday at the “Unum” statue at Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa from 6 to 8 p.m. Participants are urged to bring candles, flowers and signs, offering a space “for those to mourn, stand, and hold community.”

“It'd be an understatement using the word exhausted with organizing for traumas and murders inflicted on our communities,” the organization said in a Friday Facebook post. “In all the triggers, we still choose to stand. As we move through the Lunar New Year into Black History Month, we find ourselves asking , ‘When does it end?’”