George Floyd's family and four White House officials to attend Tyre Nichols' ... trends now

The family of George Floyd will be among the mourners paying respect to Tyre Nichols at his funeral in Memphis tomorrow.

Several relatives of the Minneapolis security guard, who was murdered by police in 2020, will attend the ceremony at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, attorney Ben Crump told TMZ.

The Floyd family have already sent their condolences to the grieving relatives of Tyre Nichols, who was savagely beaten to death by cops during a routine traffic stop earlier this month.

Also present at what will likely be an emotionally charged service will be four White House aides.

Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Keisha Lance Bottoms and her colleague Tara Murray, senior advisor Mitch Landrieu, and Erica Loewe, the director of African American media, will travel to the service in Memphis tomorrow. 

Jason Turner, senior pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, has already been speaking out about Mr Nichols' shocking death.

He said: 'We need public safety, right? We need law enforcement to combat pervasive crime.

'Also, we don't want the people who are sworn to protect and serve us brutalizing us for a simple traffic stop, or any offense.' 

Turner branded the gruesome footage of the police beating 'further proof that our city's and our nation's criminal justice systems are in dire need of change.' 

In his Sunday service, he addressed the congregation with the sermon: 'Tyre Deserves Answers.

He told Action News 5: '"What did I do?" He kept asking that over and over again.

'You need answers to heal. And accountability.'

During the service, he prayed aloud for a fair investigation into the death which has sparked protests across the country.

He said: 'We want his family to know he will not be forgotten, and the fight is not over.'

Turner is preparing for the large service tomorrow and is conscious of its political power.

He said: 'We want to give them comfort. But we also want to start what is going to be a movement to finally bring police reform to our country.'

The funeral will start at 10.30am local time and a live stream will be available online.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton will deliver the eulogy, like he did for the funeral service of George Floyd.

It comes a day after the parents of Tyre Nichols accepted an invitation to attend President Biden's State of the Union address next Tuesday.

Nichols' mother and stepfather will be the guests of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is also calling for a meeting with President Biden in the wake of the 29-year-old FedEx worker's brutal beating on January 7.

Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada, and chairman of the caucus, said he spoke with the family on Sunday 'to first extend our condolences to them, to let them know that we stand with them, to ask them what they want from us in this moment.' 

The lawyer representing the family of Tyre Nichols, Ben Crump, has urged Congress to immediately pass police reform laws that ban chokeholds in the wake of his death.