Trump says beating of Nichols ‘never should have happened’

By MEG KINNARD and MICHELLE L. PRICE
Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump says the footage of  the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers is “horrible” and that the attack “never should have happened.” Trump said in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press that Nichols was “just being pummeled” and that the beating was “vicious and violent and hard to believe.” Trump made the comments a day after authorities released footage of the attack on the 29-year-old Black man after a traffic stop. Trump was president when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. He condemned that killing at the time but later centered his reelection campaign around a message of “law and order” and support for law enforcement.