The Memphis murder of Tyre Nichols: a death of a 29-year-old black man killed in a use-of-force incident

As protesters gathered across US cities over the weekend following the Memphis police beating that led to the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, officials have said the investigation into the incident will continue amid questions over whether there could be additional charges.

On Monday, officials announced the firings of three Memphis Fire Department personnel and disclosed that two more police officers than previously known had been put on leave. Five Memphis police officers have already been fired, charged, and their police unit dismantled, as well as two sheriff’s deputies who were put on leave.

As the investigation continues, Nichols’ family attorney Ben Crump said he thinks there will be additional fallout, 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.”

They waited until 7 p.m. Friday to publicly release the agonizing footage of Nichols’ fatal encounter with officers, allowing time for local politicians, activists and Nichols’ family to make pleas for calm in the community.

Video of the encounter is difficult to watch. The video shows officers punching and kicking Nichols at one point, while his hands are restrained behind his back, after a traffic stop.

Police say that an ambulance was called to the scene after a man complained of breathing difficulties. He was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition. Three days later, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced Nichols had died from injuries sustained in the “use-of-force incident” with officers, according to the statement.

“All of these officers failed their oath,” Crump told CNN on Sunday. “They failed their oath to protect and serve. Look at that video: Was anybody trying to protect and serve Tyre Nichols?”

As a makeshift memorial grew on the corner where Nichols was beaten, marching protesters in many cities – from New York City to Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles – carried signs bearing the name of the young Black man, who the country heard calling for his mother as he was kicked, beaten and pepper-sprayed.

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.

The Memphis Police Department is ready for a new investigation into the SCORPION video of a fatal encounter with a young black man

“While the heinous actions of a few casts a cloud of dishonor on the title SCORPION,” the statement went on, “it is imperative that we, the Memphis Police Department take proactive steps in the healing process for all impacted.”

It was part of the culture of the SCORPION unit that the conduct we saw in that video was reprehensible. We asked for them to be dissolved immediately before we see anything like this happen again.

Frank Colvett, a member of the Memphis City Council, said there was a coming of age for the police department. “She’s going to have to answer not just to the council but to the citizens – and really the world.”

Memphis City Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas also commended the move and said the case should give the city a chance to “dig deeper” into community and police relations.

In the city of Memphis, we witnessed a peaceful protest and I believe that we have faith and hope that the system will get it right this time.

The officers charged in the traffic stop will make their initial court appearance on February 17. They have been indicted on charges of murder and kidnapping.

Mills Jr.’s attorney, Blake Ballin, told CNN the videos “produced as many questions as they have answers,” specifically regarding his client’s involvement during the fatal encounter, adding that Mills arrived later than other officers and that his vision was impaired by the pepper spray used during the traffic stop.

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

The Memphis Police and the Black Caucus: A Campaign for Justice in Policing and the Future of the U.S. Constitution, and a Call for Action

He specifically urged federal lawmakers to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was twice approved by the House but stalled in the Senate in 2021.

The Congressional Black Caucus is requesting a meeting with President joe Biden this week to push for negotiations on police reform.

The release of video and quick firing of police officers should be a blueprint in how police brutality allegations will be handled going forward, said Benjamin Crump, a lawyer. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis did a good job in charging the officers within 20 days.

She was not given a standing applause when she said that Congress was writing another Black man’s obituary if they didn’t stop police brutality. The blood of Black America is on your hands. Stand up and do something.

Mental health care for law enforcement officers and other topics will be addressed in some of the bills, said Representative G.A. Hardaway.

While Democrats hold the minority with 24 representatives compared to the Republican majority of 99 representatives, Towns said this legislation is not partisan and should pass on both sides of the legislature.

On the Memphis Man’s “Vicious” Genocide: What Happens When a Black Man Gets Bound and How the Memphis Police Will Look

You would not want to do anything unless you saw the footage of what happened to that young man. If a dog in this county was beaten like that, what the hell would happen?” Towns said.

The official response to the vicious beating of the Memphis man by Memphis police is already under way, two days after the video was made public.

Protesters take to the streets in Memphis and around the nation to express outrage over the incident and to protest against the police treatment of black people.

Attorneys said they hope other cities will follow suit in the near future to create greater trust in their communities. “We must keep in mind that this is just the next step on this journey for justice and accountability, as clearly this misconduct is not restricted to these specialty units. It extends so much further.”

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.

implicit bias training for police officers, mental health evaluations for police officers, limits on officers transferring departments after facing discipline or being fired and a reevaluation of low-level traffic stops are some of the issues the bills aim to address, NBC News reported.

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.

“Without federal police reform, I think we’re going to continue to see these hashtags proliferate so much that we can’t keep up with them,” Crump told ABC’s This Week.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would ban chokeholds, prohibit no-knock warrants in federal drug cases, end qualified immunity for law enforcement officers – and more.

Memphis Law Enforcement in the 21st Year: The Case of a Pedestrian Involved by a Multiple Shot and a Shot

The five former Memphis police officers charged with murder and other crimes had been with the department.

“If we look at some past incidents in our country, there’s been some mistakes made,” said Ron Johnson, a former Missouri State Highway Patrol captain, referring to the handling of previous cases of police brutality. “I think a lot of things have been done right” in this case.

Two years ago, some of the things that we are seeing today wouldn’t have happened.

There have been cases of deadly police violence in the past like the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the year 2020 and the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville, Kentucky police in the year 2020.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she thought it was a weird summary of what happened when she heard the initial account. Once she viewed video of what actually happened, she was “outraged,” she said.

Memphis actions as a example of how to maintain trust after fatal police encounters are now being blamed by law enforcement and legal analysts.

Body camera footage of the brutal incident, released late last month, cast a spotlight on the city’s law enforcement practices and renewed calls for police reform nationwide.

The preliminary results of an autopsy have been done by attorneys for the family and they have concluded he died from a severe beating.

Memphis police terminated an officer for acting excessively in a public interest and breaking the law of a minor killed in the back: The case of Walter Scott

On January 15, noting the serious nature of the officers’ conduct during the stop,Chief Davis vowed “immediate and appropriate action.” She said the department had served notice to the officers involved.

The department said that officers were terminated for failing in their duty to intervene, as well as for failing in their excessive use of force.

“The police department obviously learned something from … other high-profile cases when district attorneys were not transparent, when they did not act quickly,” said Areva Martin, an attorney and legal affairs commentator.

“They did the right thing in this case by convening a grand jury, investigating the case quickly, and then charging these officers, bringing them into custody.”

Memphis has had rapid criminal charges compared to other cities that have waited months or years in brutality cases and that is a blueprint for future cases.

The case of Walter Scott, the man who died in the back after police pulled him over for a broken brake light in South Carolina, was a close match to the one that took place with the charges against the officers.

The murder charge against the ex-North Charleston cop came two months after the shooting. The former officer’s 2016 state murder trial ended in a mistrial but Slager pleaded guilty to violation of civil rights by acting under the color of law in Scott’s killing. He was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

“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.

The delay was used by authorities to show the public that justice was being done 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.

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

The Tennessee Bridge-Breaking Event that Killed a Memphis Police Officer and left a Black Man Dead in the Footsteps of a Murder

Police departments in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Nashville and New York are among the many departments that are either monitoring events or already had plans in place for protests.

“We’ve watched so many of these cases over the last several years,” Martin said. When law enforcement come forward and give information to the community, we usually see a peaceful response.

The protesters took to the interstate after the videos were online, blocking both lanes of the bridge that connected the western Tennessee city to Arkansas. There were no arrests during the day.

Though paramedics arrived minutes after officers disengaged, Nichols appeared to be left multiple times on the pavement without assistance before an ambulance showed up.

The footage stunned hardened law enforcement experts. 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.

“All of this was preventable,” she told CNN Saturday. “You have officers who are young on the job, unsupervised out there doing what they do on a regular basis. This was not anything that they aren’t accustomed to doing.”

Memphis City Council Chairman Martavius Jones told CNN that despite the positive change in handling of brutality cases, much more needs to be done.

“To see the events unfold how they’ve unfolded, with this Tyre Nichols situation, is heartbreaking. A woman is standing at a memorial near the spot where the man was beaten. “And Tyre, out of the officers on the scene, he was the calmest.”

“When you see police officers commit crimes against citizens, then we want you to act just as swiftly and show as the chief said, the community needs to see it, but we need to see it too when it’s White police officers,” Crump said.

But disbanding the unit without giving officers new training would be “putting lipstick on a pig,” city council chair Martavius Jones told CNN Saturday.

A GoFundMe for a memorial skate park for the family of Nichols, the father of his father and his wife Tyre

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee called on Congress to revive the national police reform legislation and said it was a good starting point.

It is the right starting point and Senator Booker has been working on it for a long time. I think Sen. Scott should sit down again quickly to see if we can revive that effort, but that is not enough. He said we need a national conversation about policing in a responsible way.

The 29-year-old was a father and also the baby of his family, the youngest of four children. He spent his Sundays doing laundry and getting ready for the week as a good boy according to his mother.

A GoFundMe created by Nichols’ mother has raised over $1,085,600 as of Sunday afternoon. The donations will go towards the cost of Wells’ and her husband’s mental health services as well as their time off from their jobs, according to the page. They wanted to build a memorial skate park in honor of Tyre, who loved skating and sunsets.

The officers and paramedics on scene, as well as the people who filed paperwork, are being investigated by the district attorney.

The district attorney says the five officers were mostly to blame for the death of Nichols.

Memphis City Council Sentiments to the Memphis Police Fire Department: Tyre Nichols and the Charged Officers that Killed him

“I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it. We are going to find more to this during the trial, according to Memphis City Council member Jeff Warren. “I don’t 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 said in a Monday news release thatHemphill and other officers are being investigated for their actions.

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 personnel that responded to the encounter were fired by the fire department.

According to the fire department, the two EMTs failed to conduct adequate patient assessment and responded based on initial nature of the call.

After the fire department firings were announced Monday, an attorney for the family of Tyre Nichols said that everybody on the scene of his death was responsible for his death.

“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.

The Chief was praised for her swift action in the case, but she is also responsible for creating the SCOrpion police unit that was used when the officers were charged.

They failed him by using excessive force, failing him by not intervening, and failing him by not rendering aid, the attorney told CNN on Monday.

The Family of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Charged Officer that Collected a Black Hole with a Violation of the Civil Liberation Law

The family is still dealing with the loss of their loved one, and still trying to absorb the breadth of this multi-agency investigation.

According to a press release, the family is holding a press conference in Memphis where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his last speech before he was assassinated.

Three weeks after his death, a funeral is set to be held in Memphis on Wednesday, three weeks after he was brutalized by police on video and caused a wave of protests and calls for accountability nationwide.

Vice President Harris is expected to attend the funeral. Tamika Palmer, the mother of Breonna Taylor, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, are also expected.

The Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church is in Memphis. Central Time is at a specific time. The funeral will be streamed on Facebook and YouTube.

The two discipline cases about the use of force focused on whether the officers filed the required reports about the incidents and did not appear to examine if the officers’ used of force was warranted.

In a hearing regarding the incident, Haley said he misjudged the amount of force needed to warrant filling out the form. His lieutenant said Haley was a “hard-working officer” who “routinely makes good decisions” and “he was sure that this was a limited event.” Haley was given a written reprimand.

The violation was dismissed because the officer took full ownership of the accident and was very humble during the hearing.

The Memphis Police Department’s Discipline About a Domestic Violence Violation Charged by a U.V. Sergeant Mills

Mills joined the Memphis Police Department in March of last year after graduating with his degree from West Virginia State University.

Mills violated the procedure when he dropped hisPDA into the street while entering his squad car. The device was then run over by a separate car.

The first infraction of Mills was reported to his union representative who subsequently reprimanded him, according to department records.

Later that month, Mills failed to file a response to resistance form when he used physical force to take a woman down to the ground so she could be handcuffed and arrested. In the hearing in August 2021, Mills said he did not realize his actions necessitated use of the form and was again issued a written reprimand.

A loaded handgun was found in the rear passenger side of a squad car used by Martin and his partner. Martin did a pre- and post-shift inspection on the car but did not do a proper inspection from the outside. During his shift that day, he and his partner conducted two traffic stops, in which the suspects were placed in the backseat where the gun was found. The officers did not do an inspection after the suspects left the vehicle. Martin was issued a three-day suspension without pay, according to the files.

A fellow officer and lieutenant at the disciplinary hearing defended Martin, saying the victim didn’t want a report and Martin is not one to “shirk responsibility.”

“Memphis Police Officers are directed by department policy and state law to make a complete report on the scene of Domestic abuse calls,” the hearing officer wrote. “Officer[s] cannot base their decision to arrest based [on] the victim’s consent or on the perception of the victim’s willingness to cooperate with prosecution.”

The evaluation stated that Martin is respectful when dealing with other people regardless of their sex, race, or rank. “He approaches his calls with a positive attitude and is well received when dealing with the public. Not a single person has complained about being arrested by him, because he is a top leader in such arrests and calls.

Smith began at the department in March 2018. He crashed into a vehicle in January 2021, causing it to spin and crash into a second vehicle, which had two people inside. All parties were sent to the hospital in non-critical condition.

Smith said the driver of the second vehicle went right and then left into his lane suddenly. He admitted to speeding, but said his memory was not completely clear due to his head injury.

The documents released this week shed light on the allegations of wrongdoing by the five officers who are charged in the death of Nichols, including that they took photos of him while he was bleeding. He shared those images with non- police officers, according to reports.

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, who was driving an unmarked car and wore a black sweatshirt hoodie over his head, forced Nichols from his car using loud profanity, then sprayed him directly in the eyes with a chemical irritant spray, according to the statement.

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office’s internal review of a case against five Shelby County officers in connection with the shooting death of Nichols

The charges against Mills state that he and other officers were filmed laughing and making inappropriate comments on the body-worn camera.

Mills was accused of failing to give an accurate account of what happened after he walked away from the scene and decontaminated himself from the chemical spray.

A hearing officer wrote of Justin Smith: “You admitted you struck an unarmed and non-violent subject with a closed fist two to three times in the face because you and your partner were unable to handcuff him. … You sprayed the subject with yourirritant spray and held the individual’s arm as other officers kicked, punched and 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.

The documents that pertain to the department’s internal review paint a picture of officers with an un professional attitude according to Martin Kaste.

Authorities put the names of police officials facing criminal charges on a so-called list as part of their review of the officers’ cases.

Local defense attorney Brandon Hall told the Memphis newspaper the Commercial Appeal that he was in court Wednesday when he saw a prosecutor drop a case involving some of the officers in question, and expects a similar outcome in other cases.

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.”

According to Memphis TV station WREG, the executive director of the NAACP’s Memphis Branch said her office received several police- related complaints after the death of Nichols. They didn’t specify whether they were about specific officers or the SRPION unit.

“They displayed no integrity, so it makes me afraid that others have been treated this way,” she said. If they find someone might have been guilty of something they weren’t, you’ll have to reopen the cases.