In an emotional interview, the mother of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with police in Memphis, Tennessee, said she felt stomach pains around the same time her son was allegedly being beaten just blocks away from her home.

“It was funny. I was in the room earlier, and my stomach started hurting so bad,” RowVaughn Wells told CNN on Friday morning, as she fought through tears. “And I went into the den and told my husband, ‘my stomach is hurting so bad.’ Once I found out what happened, it was just the fact that I was feeling my son’s pain when they were beating him to death.”

On Thursday, five former police officers, who are all Black, were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. The Memphis Police Department fired all five cops last week.

Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. 

State and federal officials are also investigating.

Video of the Jan. 7 traffic stop is expected to be released to the public Friday evening. Nichols’ family and their lawyers say the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes. He was returning home from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset when he was pulled over.

Police have said Nichols was stopped for reckless driving and at some point fled from the scene.

Relatives have accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure. Authorities have only said Nichols experienced a medical emergency.

“Where was the humanity?” Wells said. “They beat my son like a piñata.”

Nichols’ mother told CNN she first learned of the incident when police knocked on her door that night. She said she was told Nichols was arrested for DUI, had to be pepper-sprayed and Tased, and was being transported to a hospital. The officer told her she could not visit her son in the hospital.

Around 4 a.m., a doctor called asking Wells if she knew Nichols was in the hospital and why she was not there with him, she said. The doctor told her Nichols had gone into cardiac arrest and his kidneys were failing, the mother said.

“When my husband and I got to the hospital and I saw my son, he was already gone,” Wells said. “They had beat him to a pulp. He had bruises all over. His head was swollen like a watermelon. His neck was bursting because of the swelling. They broke his neck. My son’s nose looked like an ‘S.’ They actually just beat the crap out of him. And so when I saw that, I knew my son was gone then. Even if he did live, he would have been a vegetable.

“This is hard,” she said earlier in the interview. “No, I don't have my baby. I'll never have my baby again. But I do know that he was a good person and all the good in Tyre will come out.”

Authorities say the video release will likely elicit strong reactions and are preparing for demonstrations. 

In a separate CNN interview, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said the video is “about the same, if not worse” than the 1991 video that showed Los Angeles Police Department officers brutally beating Black motorist Rodney King, which set off riots. 

Davis also said investigators have not been able to substantiate the officers’ claims that Nichols was driving recklessly before he was stopped.

“We've taken a pretty extensive look to determine what that probable cause was, and we have not been able to substantiate that,” she said. “It doesn't mean that something didn't happen, but there's no proof.”

In a video statement Wednesday, Davis made a plea for residents to keep the peace after the video becomes public.

“I expect you to feel what the Nichols family feels,” she said. “I expect you to feel outrage in the disregard of basic human rights, as our police officers have taken an oath to do the opposite of what transpired on the video.

“I expect our citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to protest, to demand action and results. But we need to assure our community is safe in the process. None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens.” 

Davis called the officers’ actions “heinous, reckless and inhumane.”

Nichols’ family also has urged supporters to protest peacefully, including during a candlelight vigil and prayer service Thursday.

“I don’t want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” Wells said. “If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. You can get your point across, but we don’t need to tear up our cities, people, because we do have to live in them.”

Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, who has seen the hourlong video, described to CNN that it shows police pulling Nichols out of his vehicle while he asks, “What did I do? Why are you doing this to me?”

As police were trying to wrestle Nichols to the ground, he ran away, according to Rodney Wells, who said he believes his stepson was scared. 

“I saw officers hitting on” Nichols after they caught up to him, Rodney Wells said. “I saw officers kicking him. One officer kicked him like he was kicking a football a couple of times.”

Rodney Wells said there were other officers at the scene who did not try to stop the beating or render aid to Nichols. 

“He was sitting there and then he slumped over, and an officer walked over to him and said, ‘Sit back up, MF’ while he's handcuffed,” Rodney Wells said. “So they pop him back up, and he slumped over again. And they pop him back up again, but no one was rendering aid.

“I saw some Fire Department people come out there, and they just walked around, and nobody showed him any aid, and they’re supposed to be trained in first aid.”

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said during a news conference Thursday that each of the five officers who have been charged played different roles in Nichols’ death. 

“They are all responsible,” he said. 

Court records showed that all five former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — were taken into custody. 

Martin’s lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mills’ lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. Lawyers for Smith, Bean and Haley could not be reached.

“No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die,” Massey said.

Both lawyers said they had not seen the video.

“We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is,” Ballin said.

Ben Crump, an attorney for the Nichols family, told CNN the response by the Memphis Police Department and Shelby County district attorney should be a model for how to handle such situations.

“How swiftly they moved in Memphis and how swiftly the district attorney brought charges against these five Black police officers, this is now the blueprint for America,” Crump said. “When you see officers committing crimes on video, then you can't tell us that you got to go six months, you got to go a year. Now when it was these Black officers, we saw it move swiftly.”

In a statement Thursday, President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden expressed their “heartfelt condolences” to Nichols’ family and the Memphis community. The president said Nichols deserves “a swift, full, and transparent investigation into his death.”

Joe Biden also called for peaceful protests. 

“Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable,” he said.