Harris, Breonna Taylor’s mother and George Floyd’s brother expected at Tyre Nichols funeral

Vice President Harris, Breonna Taylor’s mother and George Floyd’s brother are expected to attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols on Wednesday in Memphis, Tenn.

Nichols died earlier this month after being beaten by police officers at a traffic stop. His death has sparked a national outcry among officials and protests calling for police reform.

The Rev. Al Sharpton will deliver the eulogy at Nichols’s funeral Wednesday afternoon at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. Sharpton said on Tuesday that Nichols’s funeral will be “about justice,” not politics.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump will also deliver a call to action.

Harris’s office told The Hill that she will travel to Memphis to attend the funeral after she spoke to Nichols’s mother and stepfather, RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells, to express her condolences over the phone. Crump, who is representing the Nichols family, confirmed in a statement that Nichols’s parents invited Harris.

Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in her apartment in Louisville, Ky., and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, who was killed by police in Minneapolis, are both expected to attend Nichols’s funeral, according to The Associated Press. Both Taylor’s and Floyd’s deaths in 2020 provoked nationwide protests demanding for racial justice and police reform.

Sharpton on Tuesday also reiterated demands for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would enact measures such as requiring officers nationwide to wear body cameras, prohibiting officers from using chokeholds and declaring deadly force to only be used as a last resort. 

President Biden has also called on Congress to pass the police reform act and said that he was “outraged and deeply pained” by the video footage that showed Nichols being pepper-sprayed, tased and beaten by a group of police officers.

Other Biden officials, including Keisha Lance Bottoms, the director for the Office of Public Engagement, and Mitch Landrieu, the senior adviser to the president, will also be in attendance at the funeral on Wednesday.

–Updated at 11:10 a.m.