LAPD Deputy Chief Gerald Woodyard: 'Heart is hurting' after Tyre Nichols death

LOS ANGELES - They are videos that will forever be etched in our minds. 

Among them, is the video of Memphis police officers' deadly beating of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols.

As law enforcement officers spoke up across the nation condemning the actions in Memphis, perhaps the most visible in Los Angeles was LAPD Deputy Chief Gerald Woodyard.

On the day the City of Memphis was to release videos last Friday of Nichols' violent arrest, Woodyard was invited to a gathering in Leimert Park. Woodyard addressed the media alongside members of the community, and activists, including Rodney King's daughter Lora King.

"My heart is hurting," he stated on the news that night.

Few are higher in rank than Woodyard, who notes when he takes his uniform off, he is an African-American father of three, a son, a cousin.

In Tennessee, second-degree murder charges have been filed against the main five former Memphis police officers seen in the videos.

"There were people crying, there was horror on some of their faces," Woodyard said in his description of the room he was in when the videos were released.

Woodyard spent much of his nearly 30 years with the Los Angeles Police Department working in the LAPD's South Bureau. He joined the LAPD two years after the 1992 riots. He'd been a criminal justice major at Long Beach State University. He says he had his own encounter at a traffic stop with LAPD officers and wanted to be the change.