Black skateboarders on the life and death of Tyre Nichols: ‘He was one of us. That could have been me’

Three skaters address their own experiences, activism and the police response to their communities

It has been nearly a month since Tyre Nichols died after a beating by Memphis police. Even by the standards of a country with a long legacy of police violence, his death was breathtaking in its brutality - both in the severity of the beating by the police officers, and the negligence shown by the EMTs who stood around for 19 minutes while he fought for his life on the ground.

Nichols, 29, was a lot of things: a father, photographer, lover of sunsets and a skater. Due to its public image as a nuisance to polite society, skateboarding is a hobby intimately familiar with skirmishes with law enforcement; for Black skaters, who are often seen as outsiders in a world of outsiders, these interactions can be particularly fraught.