On Monday, the Monroe County NAACP organized a vigil for a Black man killed by Memphis police during a traffic stop earlier this month. Speakers considered the event a legislative call to action.
The vigil for 29-year-old Tyre Nichols took place at Courthouse Square in Stroudsburg, three days after officials released video footage of the police beating that led to his death.
Leaders from the Monroe County civil rights organization stood alongside state representatives, community members and a local police chief to denounce the police killing in Tennessee.
Christa Caceres, president of the Monroe County NAACP since November 2019, urged gatherers to call upon elected officials in Pennsylvania to make a change in the way police killings are investigated.
“Immediately send cases involving deaths of unarmed citizens by police directly to the state attorney general’s office or create a bipartisan review board without needing a referral from the local district attorney,” Caceres said, asking community members to contact representatives on Tuesday morning.
Tameko Patterson, Monroe County NAACP’s vice president, said she has children just a few years younger than Nichols. Knowing the details about his killing is enough, she said.
“I haven’t watched the video and I’m not going to watch it,” Patterson said. “I have two sons. They are 25 years old and 22 years old, and I worry about them every minute of every day.”
Caceres called on Jennifer Lyon, police chief of the Stroud Area Regional Department, to speak at the event. The civil rights organization president said Lyon has been consistent in her support of the Monroe NAACP.
“I’m not defending law enforcement,” Lyon said. “I’m not going to do that, because I can’t at this point.”
Lyon said police departments need to work together with community and civil rights groups to make sure cops are held accountable.
“This is only going to get solved when we get down and dirty together, and work as one unit for humanity, for the basic human race at this point,” Lyon said.
Democrat Maureen Madden, state representative for the 115th district, said receiving “thoughts and prayers” from elected officials isn’t enough. She said she wants to see other officials show their anger and use their authority to act.
“We should go right to outrage,” Madden said, “and I’m outraged that I’m part of a legislative body here in Pennsylvania and across the United States that throws up their hands and says: What do you want us to do every time a person of color is murdered at the hands of police officers in this country?”
The community in Stroudsburg listened to speakers for close to an hour. The full video of the vigil can be viewed here.
Connections to Monroe County
Caceres’ call for the state attorney general to investigate police killings in the wake of Tyre Nichols’ death evokes the December 2020 police killing of 19-year-old Christian Hall.
Hall called police to say he was considering suicide on an overpass in Monroe County. He was holding what was later determined to be a fake gun. After more than an hour, Hall approached state troopers with his hands up, but officers opened fire, killing him.
When the Monroe County District Attorney ruled the killing justified, the Hall family pushed for the attorney general’s office to conduct its own review. But then-attorney general Josh Shapiro said his office could not investigate Hall’s death unless the Monroe County DA referred the case to the state. That referral never came.
But in August 2022, Christian Hall’s family announced that a federal grand jury had begun investigating their son’s death.
The Hall family and the parents of Tyre Nichols are both being represented by attorney Benjamin Crump. The civil rights attorney has also represented the families of other people killed by police, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and Ahmaud Arbery, among others.
