JackEngelhard
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You saw the beating, to death, of Tyre Nichols, how many times?

Plenty of times, for sure, ever since the news broke January 7, from Memphis, about a traffic stop that got out of hand.

Videos, provided by the Memphis Police Department, and other sources, show a Black man, Tyre Nichols, being pummeled mercilessly, by five Black police officers.

The reason? That’s unclear. Whatever…nothing to deserve a beating such as this.

Nichols died two days later. The cops were fired immediately and face second-degree murder charges.

TV or not TV, that is the question… as to how much coverage of such an event is sufficient or too much.

There is no such thing as too much, say the Networks. It’s never enough. Riots would be even better.

Ratings, that’s the business.

But there were no riots. During the beatdown, Nichols, 29, could be heard pleading for his mother…” Mom.”

Later, his mother called for demonstrations, but no violence, no riots, and her words were heeded.

Demonstrations, yes, across the country…but truly peaceful.

Maybe so because it was Black on Black, so that racism was off the equation. Different scenario if these cops were White.

In either case, this much is obvious; the defund the police movement has depleted the law enforcement workforce, nationwide, to such a degree so that now below average personnel, not the best, not the brightest, are being hired out of desperation to fill the ranks. Nice going, defunders.

The good cops, White and Black, are still there, far in the majority…a fact to remember before tainting them all with the same brush.

You wouldn’t know this…that cops are the good guys…if you watch any of the Big Channels, ABC, NBC, CBS, where they amplify any single act of misbehavior.

They seldom hype or even mention the many lives cops save during the course of a single day.

So imagine the excitement in those newsrooms when now an appetizing story was developing from out there in Memphis.

Police brutality…whoopie.

George Floyd again? Riots. People beaten. Cities burning. Live broadcasts round the clock. Ratings, baby.

This time, though, Black on Black, so keep it down a notch. Still, police brutality. Yummy.

Word was that a police cam video was forthcoming in 24 hours that would show it all…all the “disturbing content,” as they kept saying, almost gleefully.

So it was…the sounds of a slaughterhouse as a man is being beaten to death.

In the name of decency, would it be enough to tell, not to show? Or maybe once. Okay, twice.

Three times and it’s macabre, and it’s inflammatory, and it’s incitement.

But again, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, on and on, morning news, midday news, nighttime news, the same “disturbing content.”

You were warned that it would be disturbing, but as a citizen it was your duty to know the facts.

But again and again?

Yes, so that finally, the worst among us will be fired up to go rioting.

Ratings, baby.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Email Jack here.

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