The Memphis police beating death of Tyre Nichols: a case for decertified sworn public servants, not felony charges

The death of the man in Memphis after he was beaten by the police has led to protests across the US with some questioning if additional charges should be filed.

The fallout from the Memphis police beating death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols continues with three more firings while prosecutors say they’re still looking at everyone involved leading up to, during and following the deadly January encounter.

As the investigation goes on, Ben Crump believes there will be additional ramifications, but “whether that’s going to lead to criminal charges, we have to see.”

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he can’t comment on whether there might be additional charges brought, but “nothing we did last Thursday regarding indictments precludes us from bringing other charges later.”

Mulroy said officials knew the video could be incendiary and release it without charges could be harmful to the officers. The best solution was to make the investigation go quicker so that the charges can be considered first before the video is released.

The city on Friday released body-camera and pole-camera surveillance footage of the initial traffic stop, as well as the beating at the second site. One of the videos shows a police officer using a stun gun at a person and saying after the person ran: “one of them prongs hit the bastard.”

Nichols died on Jan. 10, three days after he was pulled over for what officers said was reckless driving. The body camera video showed one of the officers, tricious Haley, aggressively pulling Nichols out of his car and forcing him to the ground, pepper-spraying him and then using a stun gun on him.

The Memphis Police Department requested that Haley and the other officers be decertified, as their on-duty conduct was “unbefitting” and “unbecoming” for a sworn public servant.

Memphis Police, the SCORPION Unit, and Tyre Nichols: A Memorino of a Black Man and His Mother

In a show of support for the young Black man who was beaten and call for his mother, protesters in many cities carried signs with the name of the man on them.

Nichols’ family, now at the center of unfamiliar media attention, remembered him as a good son and father who enjoyed skateboarding, photography and sunsets. They recalled his smile and hugs and mourned the moments they’ll never have again.

Memphis police announced Saturday that it will permanently deactivate the unit, saying that “while the heinous actions of a few casts a cloud of dishonor on the title SCORPION, it is imperative that we, the Memphis Police Department take proactive steps in the healing process for all impacted.”

The conduct shown in that video was reprehensible and it was part of the culture of the SCORPION unit. “So we demanded that they disbanded immediately before we see anything like this happen again.”

Memphis city council member Frank Colvett said there was a requirement for the police department and the leadership. “She’s going to have to answer not just to the council but to the citizens – and really the world.”

The law enforcement officials in Memphis were praised for their fast investigation and transparency in the wake of the brutal assault on Tyre Nichols by police officers.

Easter-Thomas said they saw a peaceful and direct sense of protest in the city of Memphis and maybe we have faith that the system will work out.

Memphis PD Charged with a Pedestrian: A Call to the Lord, or The Good Lord Couldn’t Happen. The Memphis Police will stand up and do something

In January, a grand jury returned indictments and charged all five officers with the same charges, including second-degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated kidnapping.

The attorney for the indicted officer, Mills Jr., said that he did not cross any lines in the confrontation. The attorney, Blake Ballin, told CNN Mills was a “victim” of the system he worked within.”

Two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols’ initial care were relieved of duty, pending the outcome of an internal investigation. And two deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office have been put on leave pending an investigation.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was twice approved by the House, but it was not passed by the Senate.

The Congressional Black Caucus is requesting a meeting with President Joe Biden this week to push for negotiations on police reform, caucus chair Steven Horsford wrote in a news release Sunday.

Gloria Sweet-Love, the Tennessee State Conference NAACP President applauds Memphis police Chief Davis for doing the right thing and not waiting until after the fact to fire the officers who beat up someone.

Congress failed to craft and approve bills to stop police brutality, she said, and they were writing another black man’s obituary. The blood of Black America is on your hands. Stand up and do something.

Towards a Tennessee Legislature that focuses on Police Training, Discipline, Mental Health and More in Light of Tyre Nichols’s Death

Tennessee’s state legislature will propose new legislation dealing with police training, discipline, mental health and more in light of the death of Tyre Nichols.

The Republican majority of 99 representatives should pass the legislation since it is not partisan, stated Rep. Joe Towns Jr.

“You would be hard-pressed to look at this footage (of Tyre Nichols) and see what happened to that young man, OK, and not want to do something. If a dog in this county was beaten like that, what the hell would happen?” Towns said.

The official efforts to respond to the vicious beating of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police are already underway, just two days after footage of the incident was released to the public.

Meanwhile, protesters continue to take to the streets of Memphis and elsewhere around the nation to express outrage over the incident and again rally against the treatment of Black people by police.

“We hope that other cities take similar action with their saturation police units in the near future to begin to create greater trust in their communities,” the attorneys said. “We must remember that this is just the next step on the journey for justice and accountability as it is not restricted to these specialty units.” It extends so much further.”

The Memphis Unarmed Shooting and the First-Law Nichols-Robertson’s Deportation Charged with a Heroin’s Detector

House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons, Rep. G.A. Hardaway and Rep. Joe Towns, Jr., announced their plan during a press conference on Saturday.

There are a number of issues the bills seek to address, including implicit bias training, mental health evaluations for police officers, limits on officers transferring departments, and a re evaluation of low-level traffic stops.

Republicans hold a sizable majority in the Tennessee General Assembly, but the Democrats said they were confident they could get bipartisan support because of the magnitude of the incident, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

“If federal police reform is not implemented, we’re going to continue to see these hashtags get so popular that we can’t keep up with them” he said.

The act would prohibit choke holds, no-knock warrants in federal drug cases, and end qualified immunity for law enforcement officers.

Five former officers were indicted Thursday on charges of second-degree murder and kidnapping. One day later, officials released police body camera and street surveillance footage of the deadly encounter after a January 7 traffic stop.

They learned from the actions of the police after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a Black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

“A year ago, two years ago, we wouldn’t have seen some of the things we’re seeing here,” Johnson said of Memphis law enforcement’s handling of Nichols’ death.

There was no forced entry in the case of Taylor, according to the initial statement from police. But officers had used a battering ram to enter her home before shooting her. Floyd appeared to be suffering medical distress according to Minneapolis police. Officer Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck in video.

The Memphis Police Department requested the documents in order to prevent the five officers from being hired back to work in law enforcement. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis signed each of the five requests to decertify the officers.

Law enforcement and legal analysts are now saying that the actions of Memphis show how to maintain trust in the community after fatal police encounters.

The body camera footage of the brutal incident casts a spotlight on the city’s law enforcement practices and calls for police reform nationwide.

Memphis Police Tyre Nichols Case: a Rapid Criminal Charge for a Vandal-Bags Charged Officer with Perjury

The preliminary results of an autopsy commissioned by attorneys for Nichols’ family said he suffered “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” family attorney Benjamin Crump said this week.

Chief Davis vowed “immediate and appropriate action” as he pointed out the seriousness of the police conduct during the stop. The officers were served notice by the department.

The department stated in a statement that officers were terminated because they failed in their duty to render aid and excessive use of force.

Areva Martin, an attorney and legal affairs commentary, said that the police department had learned something from high-profile cases when district attorneys were not transparent.

They did the right thing in this case, charging the officers with perjury after having convened a grand jury to investigate the case.

Crump, in a news conference Friday, called Memphis’ rapid criminal charges – compared to other cities that have waited months or years in brutality cases – a “blueprint” for police departments, prosecutors and political leaders in future cases.

CNN political analyst Bakari Sellers said the swiftness of the charges reminded him of the case involving the April 2015 death of Walter Scott, who was fatally shot in the back after officers pulled him over for a broken brake light in South Carolina.

The former cop from North Charleston was indicted on a murder charge two months after the shooting. The 2016 state murder trial of the former officer ended in a mistrial but he was found guilty of violating civil rights by acting under the color of law. He was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/30/us/memphis-police-tyre-nichols-case/index.html

A video of the Memphis, Tennessee, EMT Nichols, whose EMT walked away from a police officer’s fatal encounter, and its public outrage

“The last thing you want to do is take a high tension event and then add that thing that’s going to increase tension … on a Friday night knowing that people don’t have to be at work in the morning and they have the whole weekend ahead of them,” said CNN law enforcement analyst John Miller.

Miller said, the delay allowed authorities to show the public that the wheels of justice are turning quickly. The additional time also allowed officials to “unite the faith community in Memphis, the voice of the family and the family’s lawyers, and the key community contacts” in calling for calm.

Police departments throughout the country, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Nashville and New York, have already made plans in case of protests.

Over the last several years we have watched a lot of these cases. “And when (law enforcement authorities) come forward and when they’re transparent and they provide information to the community, we typically see a very peaceful response.”

Mostly peaceful protesters in Memphis took to Interstate 55 Friday night after the videos went online, blocking both lanes of the highway’s bridge connecting the western Tennessee city to Arkansas. There were no arrests.

The video, released on Friday, shows that after the EMTs arrived, first responders walked away from Nichols, with the EMT falling onto his side.

Law enforcement experts were shocked by the footage. Officials across the country expressed outrage – including President Joe Biden, who said it was “yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day.”

Cheryl Dorsey, a retired sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department, said the footage of Nichols’ fatal encounter has left many unanswered questions about what Memphis PD did to prevent the tragedy.

She told CNN that all of this was preventable. They have officers who are young on the job who are doing what they do on a regular basis. This was not anything that they aren’t accustomed to doing.”

The Chairman of the Memphis City Council became emotional as he told CNN that much more could be done despite the positive shift in the handling of brutality cases.

“We are looking at everybody who had any kind of involvement in this incident,” from the officers and paramedics on scene to those who filed the paperwork, Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy said Monday.

Prosecutors moved “extraordinarily quick” with charges against the five officers “primarily responsible for the death of Tyre Nichols,” the district attorney said.

Memphis City Council Chairman Jeff Warren: “It’s Been Too Late” When a Charged Officer Stopped a Police Officer in the Near-Second Collision

We don’t think it’s over. Memphis City Council member Jeff Warren believes there’s more to come as they go into the trial. I do not think we’re on top of this yet.

“We need to make sure that we go through our police department and see where we were weak, what happened with our procedures, what happened with our oversight,” Warren said.

Another officer has also been fired and a seventh has been relieved of duty in connection with the latest police killing to prompt angry nationwide protests and an intense public conversation about how police officers treat Black residents.

Memphis police stated in a news release that officer’s actions and inactions were being investigated.

That body-cam video does not show Hemphill at the second site, where the county’s district attorney has said Nichols was beaten and suffered his serious injuries.

The fire department said Monday that the emergency medical technicians and fire lieutenant were terminated over their response to the encounter.

The fire department found that the two EMTs did not conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols due to the initial nature of the call and information they were told at the scene.

An attorney for the family of the man who died after he was hit by a car said after the fire department firings were announced that everyone on that scene was to blame.

“Some of the questions that remain will require a focus on Desmond Mills’ individual actions,” and “on whether Desmond’s actions crossed the lines that were crossed by other officers during this incident,” Ballin said.

While some have praised Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis’ swift action in the case, she is also who created the now-deactivated SCORPION police unit that the charged officers were part of.

“They either failed by using excessive force; they failed him by severely beating him; they failed him by not intervening; they failed him by not rendering aid,” the attorney told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Monday.

The funeral of Tyre Nichols, 46, the attorney for Martin Luther King Jr. and the investigation of a police officer’s alleged misconduct

The family is still trying to comprehend the entire investigation while also dealing with the loss of a loved one, according to the attorney.

According to the press release, the press conference will be held at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ headquarters, where Martin Luther King Jr. spoke before he was assassinated.

The funeral for Tyre Nichols is set to be held in Memphis on Wednesday, roughly three weeks after he died following a beating by police that was caught on video and sparked a wave of protests and calls for accountability nationwide.

Vice President Harris will be at the funeral thanks to the request of the family. Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, are also expected.

At 10:30 a.m., services will start at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis. Time is central. Organizers said the funeral would be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.

New documents released this week shed light on the alleged misconduct of the five officers charged in Nichols’ death, including an allegation that Haley took photos of Nichols as he lay bleeding against a police car. He then shared those images with people other than police officers.

Haley’s lawyer declined to comment, and lawyers for the other four officers either declined to comment or did not respond to requests from The Associated Press.

Haley, wearing a black sweatshirt hoodie over his head, forced Nichols out of his car, and sprayed him in the eyes with a chemical irritant spray, according to the statement.

On the case of D. Mills, LM, Martin, Smith, and Bean, all of whom have been charged with second-degree murder

The charges against Mills say that he and other officers were captured on body cameras making comments about their involvement and laughing about it.

They added, “You admitted you did not provide immediate medical aid and walked away and decontaminated yourself from chemical irritant spray,” and further accused Mills of later failing to give Nichols’ mother an accurate account of what happened.

“You admitted you struck the non-violent and defenseless subject with a closed fist two to three times in the face because you and your partner were not able to handcuff him,” the hearing officer wrote. The officer sprayed the subject with his irritant spray and held the person’s arm as other officers kicked, punched and pepper sprayed him.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office confirmed in an email to NPR that it will review closed and pending cases connected to Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean, who have all been fired and charged with second-degree murder.

NPR’s Martin Kaste told All Things Considered that the documents, which pertain to the department’s internal review, “paint a picture of officers with a very unprofessional attitude.”

The police officials’ names were put on a list of people facing criminal charges, in addition to putting the officers’ other cases up for review.

Brandon Hall told the Commercial Appeal that he was in court Wednesday when the prosecutor dropped the case against some of the officers.

Another defense attorney and former Shelby County prosecutor, Josh Corman, told the newspaper that prosecutors have been reviewing cases connected to the five officers and that he thinks “it would be a nightmare for any prosecutor to use them as a witness.”

Vickie Terry, the Executive Director of the NAACP’s Memphis Branch, told Memphis TV station WREG that her office received several police-related complaints after Nichols’ death (though she didn’t specify whether they were about those specific officers or the SCORPION unit).

She said she was afraid that other people had been treated this way. “If they go back and find out somebody might have been convicted for something that they did not do, you’re definitely going to have to reopen cases.”

The Case of Bagley, 43, a Black Man Shot and killed by a Shreveport Officer: A Wrongful Death

The family of the black man shot and killed by a Shreveport police officer have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the officer.

Bagley, 43, was shot and killed earlier this month after police responded to a domestic disturbance call at an apartment complex, Louisiana State Police said in a statement. When two officers arrived around 10:50 p.m. on February 3, Bagley jumped down from an apartment balcony and fled, said the statement from state police, which is the agency investigating the shooting.

The use of lethal force against a man who posed no threat is excessive and without justification, according to the lawsuit.

Tyler is on paid administrative leave pending the results of the state police investigation, according to the Shreveport Police Department. The officer has been with the department since May 2021, Chief Wayne Smith said.

A grand jury in Louisiana indicted a group of state troopers and a law enforcement officer on charges stemming from the beating of a man during an arrest.

“I am asking for the community to remain patient as we continue to conduct a very thorough investigation,” Davis said following Bagley’s death. “Transparency in the investigation is a priority for our agency.”

“The family hopes to view the video before (Bagley’s) funeral,” Ronald Haley, the family’s attorney, told CNN, noting the funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

“Further information will be released in coordination with the District Attorney’s Office. We do not have a timeline at this time,” Nick Manale, a spokesperson for state police, told CNN via email.

Laura Fulco, first assistant district attorney for Caddo Parish, said that Louisiana State police had a case under investigation. It’s still under investigation.

The five defendants in Nichols’ beating and death: A plea to justice for an American man, a black man in a courtroom in America

All five men were released on bond, and appeared together as their lawyers entered pleas for them. The parents of Tyre Nichols sat in the courtroom gallery beside their attorney, Ben Crump.

“Friday’s appearance was the beginning of the process of justice and we were determined to see it through to the end,” Wells said.

“They didn’t even have the courage to look at me in my face after what they did to my son,” she said of the defendants’ brief courtroom appearance. “So they’re going to see me at every court date, every one, until we get justice for my son.”

John Keith Perry, the attorney for Tadarrius Bean, signaled after Friday’s hearing that his strategy is likely to rely on convincing a jury that not all five former officers shared equal culpability in Nichols’ beating and death.

“You look at the involvement of each individual defendant, and in that particular case, he was doing his job, no more, no less,” Perry said. He didn’t hit anyone. He always did his job.

He said his client is a Black man in a courtroom in America. I will work to make sure that a fair outcome is achieved, and that the system does not fail Mr. Mills.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/17/1157756023/memphis-tyre-nichols-police-officers-court-charges

The Memphis Police Department Will Release Additional Information after the Nichols-Death-Memicopal-Scenario

The second-degree murder charge the five officers face carries a sentence of 15 to 60 years. The next court date was set by the judge.

Last week, the City Council preliminarily approved six ordinances to revamp the police department, including one that would restrict officers’ ability to conduct routine traffic stops and another that would ban officers from making traffic stops while in unmarked cars like the ones officers used to stop Nichols. Among other measures, the council also voted to strengthen the civilian review board that investigates complaints of police abuse.

“You become so used to watching police violence in the city of Memphis,” said L.J. Abraham, an organizer with the Tennessee-based Equity Alliance. “But I don’t think any of us ever expected to see someone as gentle and kind and nonviolent as Tyre be pulled out of his car and beaten to death. If that would happen to him, that could literally happen to anybody.”

In recent years, Memphis officials have undertaken an aggressive push to hire hundreds of new police officers amid stubbornly high rates of violent crime.

The department has been unable to find qualified people to fill their ranks so they have lowered their hiring criteria. Critics have warned those moves could mean more enlisted police officers unfit to serve and more likely to abuse their authority.

During a city council meeting on Tuesday, Memphis City Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Sink said that the city is also ready to release additional information — including nearly 20 hours of video and audio from the scene of Nichols’ death — to the public on Wednesday afternoon.

Both the city’s police and fire departments have been conducting administrative investigations to determine whether any employees involved in the incident violated department policies, according to Sink.

The City of San Mateo Investigating the Nichols Charges and Appeals against the Suspended Police for his Violation of the Fourth Amendment

The director of communications will release the 20 hours of new video and audio at a later date, as the previous body camera footage was made public in January.

Sink said the city will also release redacted documents related to the charges and administrative investigations against those involved in Nichols’ death.

During the hearing, a committee member asked whether any officers who struck Nichols were still employed by the department. One of the suspended officers “did place hands on the legs” according to Sink.