MEMPHIS, Tenn. — RowVaughn Wells, the mother of Tyre Nichols, said Wednesday’s verdict acquitting three former Memphis Police officers of state charges in her son’s death was a “devastating blow” to her family.

Wells spoke at a rally for her son Wednesday afternoon as rain poured outside the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

“What we heard was not what we wanted to hear. But was I shocked, surprised? No, I wasn’t,” she said.

An out-of-town jury from Hamilton County took about eight and a half hours over two days to find Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith not guilty on all charges after a nine-day trial in Memphis.

Wells praised the job done by prosecutors with the D.A.’s office, but the out-of-town jury brought in from Hamilton County in East Tennessee didn’t give a “rat’s butt” about her son.

“My son was murdered. He was murdered, and three of them got off, because those jurors decided not to look at the evidence, but only to look at the fact that my son was a Black man running from the police. They didn’t care that my son was afraid for his life,” she said.

Rodney Wells, Nichols’ stepfather, said the verdict was not what the family expected. They had expected to retire to Chattanooga, he said, but now would not visit the city where the jurors were drawn from.

“Of 21 charges, nothing,” he said, referring to the seven charges faced by each of the three officers.

He noted that officers still face sentencing in the earlier federal trial.

“We do have a little solace in our family for that reason and that reason only, that they are going to jail,” he said.

“Everybody keeps talking about the federal charges, but the federal charges don’t count. The murder charges are what mattered, and those white people failed us, they failed this entire city,” said  LJ Abraham, activist at the rally.

“Mayor Young, if you love Tyre Nichols, you would’ve got rid of CJ Davis,” said Kareem Ali, Investigator, Ben Crump Law Firm. “It’s her unit that she brought from Atlanta and created the Scorpion Unit right here in Memphis, Tennessee.”

Protestors marched down Main Street and then Beale Street.

There is a civil lawsuit between the Nichols’ family and the city of Memphis. The family said right now they are focusing on the federal sentencing for all five former officers.