The Memphis police beating that killed a 29-year-old man and its connection to the fatal encounter between a Memphis officer and a police officer

The investigation into the Memphis police beating that resulted in the death of a 29-year-old man will continue even as protesters gather around the US, officials have said.

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 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.”

There could be additional charges brought, Steve Mulroy said, but that they couldn’t say because they didn’t do anything about the indictments last Thursday.

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.

One of the family attorneys said the video showed officers hitting him like a human piata.

“Afterward, the suspect complained of having a shortness of breath, at which time an ambulance was called to the scene,” police said. Police said he died three days after being in critical condition.

The Memphis Police Department and the Loss of Tyre Nichols, the Blazar of Tyson Crump’s Oath to Protect and Serve

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

There were many protesters who took to the streets in cities from New York City to Atlanta to Boston and Los Angeles, carrying signs with the name of a young Black man who called 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 mourned the moments that they won’t have again, and they remembered his smile and hugs.

“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 of all those impacted. The Memphis Police Department is still committed to serving our community as they rebuild the trust that was damaged by the death of Mr. Nichols.

“That reprehensible conduct we saw in that video, we think this was part of the culture of the SCORPION unit,” Crump said. Before we see anything like this happening again, we demanded that they dismantle immediately.

“There is a reckoning coming for the police department and for the leadership,” Memphis City Council member Frank Colvett said. She will have to answer to both the citizens and the council as well as the world.

Weeks after Tyre Nichols was brutalized by Memphis police officers, city law enforcement officials are being hailed for their unusually rapid investigation and transparency compared to similar cases in other US cities.

The city of Memphis saw a peaceful and direct sense of protest, perhaps because we have faith that the system will work out this time, Easter-Thomas said.

The Charged Officers Indicted in the Shelby County Collision of Tyre Nichols and the Congressional Black Caucus

The officers charged in the encounter with Nichols – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr. – are expected to be arraigned on February 17. They face charges of second-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, among other counts.

The attorney for one of the officers indicted, Mills Jr., put out a statement Friday night saying that he didn’t cross lines “that others crossed” during the confrontation. The attorney told CNN that Mills was a victim of the system he worked in.

Additionally, two deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office were put on leave last week pending an investigation, after video of the incident was released. “I have concerns about two deputies who appeared on scene following the physical confrontation between police and Tyre Nichols,” Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. said Friday.

Crump called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which passed the Democratic-controlled House in 2021 but not the evenly split 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 praised Memphis Police Chief Davis for not waiting for a year to fire the officers who beat up an 18-year-old man.

She had no applause for Congress, who she called to action saying, “by failing to craft and pass bills to stop police brutality, you’re writing another Black man’s obituary. The blood of Black America is on your hands. So stand up and do something.”

Proposal for a new Tennessee law reform bill to protect the mental health of black people by police: A day after the Tyre Nichols incident

On the state level, two Democratic state lawmakers in Tennessee said Saturday that they intend to file police reform legislation ahead of the Tennessee general assembly’s Tuesday filing deadline. The bills would seek to address mental health care for law enforcement officers, hiring, training, discipline practices and other topics, said Rep. G.A. Hardaway, who represents a portion of Memphis and Shelby County.

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

“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?” There are people who said Towns.

A day after video of the incident wasreleased to the public, the official response to it is already under way.

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.

The attorneys said they hope that other cities will begin to create trust in their communities by taking similar action with their saturation police units. This is just the beginning of the journey for justice and accountability as this conduct is not restricted to these specialty units. It extends so much further.”

The Memphis Shooting of March 13, 2020: How a Federal Police Reform Reform Can Rebuild Trust, and How to Reconstruct Trust in the Memphis Community

House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons and Reps. Joe Towns, Jr. and G.A Hardaway held a press conference on Saturday.

Among the bills aim to address are 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, 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, we’re going to see more of this, so much that we can’t keep up with them,” he told ABC’s This Week.

There is a bill that would ban chokeholds, no-knock warrants in federal drug cases, and more.

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

“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.

Some of the things we’re seeing are things that wouldn’t have happened a year ago.

The incident report for the botched police raid that led to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black EMT, said that there was no forced entry when in fact Taylor was killed when officers forced their way into her home on March 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky.

On hearing the initial account, the Memphis Police Chief thought it was a strange summary of what happened during the traffic stop. Once she viewed video of what actually happened, she was “outraged,” she said.

Legal analysts and law enforcement say that the actions of the city of Memphis is a good example of how to rebuild trust in the community after fatal police encounters.

“We’re in a new era of accountability,” said CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson, noting the proliferation of police body cameras and cell phone and surveillance video that capture violence by officers. The more we have these instances that are caught on camera, the more people want to know who is to blame.

Memphis Police Chief David Davis Ordered to re-open the Investigating Investigating the Case of an Autopsy: A Pedestrian Robbed to Death

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.

While noting the serious nature of the officers conduct during the stop, Chief Davis vowed immediate and appropriate action. She said that the department was delivering notice to the officers.

Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith were terminated for failing in their “excessive use of force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid,” the department said in a statement.

Other high-profile cases, when district attorneys did not act quickly, were learned from by the police department.

“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 is the only city in the nation that has criminal charges in less than a month for brutality cases, according to a news conference Friday by attorney Benjamin Crump.

The case of Walter Scott, who was killed by a South Carolina police officer after a traffic stop, reminded me of the charges brought against him.

After being found guilty of second degree murder and 16 counts of battery with a gun, Van Dyke was sentenced to 81 months in prison. The four officers were fired and three others were found not guilty of covering up details from the killing.

Memphis PD’s response to the video of the fatal encounter of Nickle Nichols with a police officer and two paramedics

You don’t want to make the situation worse by taking a high tension event and then adding something that will make people feel worse on a Friday night. and they have the whole weekend ahead of them,” said CNN law enforcement analyst John Miller.

The delay gave authorities time to show the public that the wheels of justice are turning quickly. It allowed officials to unite the faith community in Memphis, and the voice of the family and the family’s lawyers, in calling for calm.

Police departments across the country – including in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Nashville and New York – said they were either monitoring events or already had plans in place in case of protests.

Martin said that they have watched a lot of the cases over the last few years. “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.”

Protesters took to I 55 in Memphis late Friday night after videos went online blocking both lanes of the bridge which connects the city to Arkansas. There were no arrests.

Pole-camera video released Friday shows that after the EMTs arrived and before the ambulance arrived, first responders repeatedly walked away from Nichols, with Nichols intermittently falling onto his side.

Biden said that the video 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 Saturday that all of this was preventable. You have young officers who are 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 grew emotional after watching the video, telling CNN that despite the positive shift in the handling of brutality cases, much more needs to be done.

The officers and paramedics on scene, as well as the people who filed the paperwork, will be looked at by the district attorney.

The district attorney said that prosecutors moved quickly with the charges against the five officers.

Memphis City Council Member Jeff Warren: “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it yet” and the investigation of Tyre Nichols

“I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it. And I think we’re going to find there’s more to this as we go into the trial,” Memphis City Council member Jeff Warren said. “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.

On Monday, police said a sixth and a seventh officer were placed on leave with the other five on January 8 – and those two officers still are subjects of an internal investigation.

The police department in Memphis stated in a news release Monday that the actions and inactions of the officer are the subject of an investigation.

The second site is where the district attorney has stated that Nichols was beaten and suffered serious injuries.

The fire personnel terminated over their response to the encounter are emergency medical technicians Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge and fire Lt. Michelle Whitaker, the fire department said Monday.

The fire department’s investigation concluded that “the two EMTs responded based on the initial nature of the call and information they were told on the scene and failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols,” the fire chief said in a news release.

The attorneys for two of the fired police officers commented to CNN. Martin’s attorney, William Massey, said “no one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die.”

Some of the questions that are still being asked include whether Mills crossed the lines that other officers had crossed during the incident, and if he did so at all.

Some people have praised Chief Cerelyn “CJ”Davis for her swift action in the case but she was also the one who created the now-deactivate SCORPION police unit.

The attorney said they failed him by failing him by using excessive force, failing him by beating him, failing him by not intervening and failing him by not rendering aid.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/us/tyre-nichols-investigation-tuesday/index.html

A Press Release on the Investigation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination by a Forgery in Progress: A Note from the Nichols Family

The attorney said Nichols’ family still is trying to absorb the breadth of this multi-agency investigation, while also dealing with the loss of their loved one.

According to a press release from their attorney, the Nichols family will hold a press conference at Memphis’ Mason Temple Church of God in Christ headquarters, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his last speech the day before he was assassinated.

In the days after Tennessee’s officials released video footage of police officers brutality, law enforcement has faced a new wave of criticism.

For some, the discrepancy between the initial police statement and what was captured on video brought to mind previous instances in which law enforcement’s initial statement about a violent encounter was vague, misleading or false.

On May 25, 2020, the Minneapolis Police Department said officers responded to a forgery in progress and arrested a suspect. The suspect was placed in handcuffs after officers noticed that he appeared to be suffering from medical distress. “They called for an ambulance.”

The man was George Floyd, and video footage of the incident captured by a bystander showed former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes while Floyd repeatedly pleaded, “I can’t breathe!” Floyd passed away that day.

The New York police department said a man died when he was placed in handcuffs and was taken into custody, according to a New York Daily News article at the time.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office initially said that a man died from a drug overdose inside the Santa Rita Jail. But as the Guardian reported, body-camera footage released later showed that officers put Armstrong in a restraining jacket and a spit mask before he became unresponsive. An autopsy found that Armstrong died of asphyxiation due to the restraints.

John Elder was the public information director of the Minneapolis Police Department and wrote the initial statement about Floyd’s death. He told the Los Angeles Times that he got information from police officers, but he had not seen any video footage of the encounter before writing the press release.

“This had literally zero intent to deceive or be dishonest or disingenuous. Elder said that the statement might have been different if he’d known that it was what the video showed.

When there are discrepancies in the report or the statements that are put out that don’t match the evidence when it comes out is where the conflict comes in. And when the language that is used is particularly one that tries to abdicate responsibility,” she said.

She said she worked with one agency that would bring in community leaders for an explanation of an incident before discussing it with the media. She said departments can acknowledge if they are still looking into what happened, if they have not yet reviewed the video evidence.

The Preliminary White House Address to Tyre Nichols’s Mother and Mother, Kamala Harris, and the Wells Family

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend the funeral at the invitation of Nichols’ family. Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, along with the mother of Breonna Taylor are also expected.

“The Vice President expressed her deep condolences and offered the family support as they continue to navigate this challenging time,” the official added.

Harris is attending at the invitation of the Wells family. White House Director for the Office of Public Engagement Keisha Lance Bottoms and senior adviser to the president Mitch Landrieu will also be in attendance.

Harris’ contact with Nichols’ parents comes after President Joe Biden spoke with the Wells family on Friday, hours before video of Nichols’ beating by police officers was released by Memphis officials.

The administration presence at the funeral will come as come as prospects for federal legislative reforms on policing, which the Wells family has pushed for, appear slim.

In her own statement Friday, Harris said, “Tyre Nichols should have made it home to his family. Yet, once again, America mourns the life of a son and father brutally cut short at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve.”

The Congressional Black Caucus Executive Director stated on Sunday that the caucus chairman invited the parents of the girl who died to Washington as guests of the caucus.

The case against a reckless driver at the Thurgood Marshall civil rights center in Monroe, N.C., December 10, 2019. A video interview with Justin Hansford

There had been a “confrontation” between officers and a driver suspected of reckless driving, police said. The suspect fled the scene on foot, as officers tried to take him into custody, the statement said.

The Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University is headed by a law professor named Justin Hansford and he said that the situation is very problematic. “Once again we have a huge gap between what was in the police report and the facts that later came out. This issue of believing police reports on their face as they are immediately released is something that we need to reconsider.”

According to documents in court, troopers used force because of crash-related blunt force chest trauma that resulted in a broken sternum and rupturing aorta, which they said was for the safety of the public.

But videos from police body camera and dash camera told a different story of what happened on the night of May 10, 2019, near the city of Monroe. The footage was obtained by the Associated Press and shows the crash and the actions of the officers.

Hollingsworth died in a car crash in September 2020. In December 2022, five law enforcement officers involved in the arrest were indicted on state charges ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance in office and obstruction of justice.

The initial news release for the arrest of George Floyd stated that the suspect was suffering from medical distress when he was arrested. Officers called for an ambulance. The adult male, believed to be in his 40s, was taken to the medical center and pronounced dead.

One bystander who took video, Darnella Frazier, testified during Chauvin’s trial. George Floyd told me that he can’t breathe. Please. Get off of me. She testified that she was unable to breathe. He cried for his mom. He seemed to know that it was over for him.

Several other bystanders also captured video of the encounter, including another high school student, an off-duty firefighter and an employee at the Speedway across the street.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/us/police-report-contradict-video-tyre-nichols/index.html

How the wrong person was shot and killed: A case of Floyd, van Dyke, and Brett Slager, the prosecutor, and the inspector general Joseph Ferguson

But the judge in the case recently ruled Floyd’s murder had four aggravating factors, which paves the way for him to sentence Chauvin to longer than the recommended 12 and a half years.

Taylor was struck by bullets six times after her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired one shot at officers serving a warrant. Walker said he thought the officers were from out of town.

The officer took a total of thirty-two shots, when there was not enough time to take a single shot. This is how the wrong person was shot and killed.”

One of the officers at the scene, Brett Hankison, is expected to stand trial in 2022 on charges of wanton endangerment for allegedly firing into an adjacent occupied apartment, according to the state attorney general. Hankison was fired in June 2020.

But cellphone video taken by a bystander captured Slager chasing Scott. Prosecutors say not only did that video show Slager firing at Scott’s back from 17 feet away, but that it showed him dropping his Taser by Scott’s body.

Lavon McDonald was fatally shot by a police officer and 11 Chicago police officers were accused of exaggerating the threat he posed. And a former lieutenant who led the shooting investigation allegedly destroyed handwritten notes from witness interviews, the investigative report from Inspector General Joseph Ferguson revealed in 2019.

Police initially said McDonald, a Black teenager, approached officers while armed with a knife and refused verbal commands to drop it, prompting Jason Van Dyke to open fire six seconds after getting out of his squad car. He shot McDonald 16 times in October 2014.

After 13 months, a judge ordered the release of the video of the shooting, which was shot on a dashboard police camera. McDonald was shown walking away from officers rather than charging them.

Tamika Nichols and the Rev. Al Sharpton: A tribute to a black man killed by a police officer and a clarion call for justice

Two weeks after he died following a beating that was caught on video and sparked protests across the country, a funeral will be held in Memphis on Wednesday.

Mourners at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis are expected to celebrate Nichols’ life rather than focus on the heart-wrenching footage of the beating that left him in a hospital bed for days with his face badly swollen and bruised before his death, sparking protests across the country.

Representing other Black people killed by police, Tamika Palmer – whose daughter Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky, home by police during a botched raid in March 2020 – is expected to attend the service.

Philonise Floyd, the younger brother of George Floyd, who died after an ex-cop Minneapolis knelt on his neck and back for nearly 9 minutes, is expected.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a painfully familiar role, will deliver a eulogy that will pay tribute to Nichols’ life and serve as a clarion call for justice.

They will never recover from the loss. Every holiday, there’ll be a missing chair at their table. Every day this mother and father and brothers and sisters will have to remember he’s gone,” Sharpton said. We will never leave them.

My brother was the most peaceful person I have ever met. He never gestured to anyone. Dupree said that he never raised his voice to anyone. My brother wouldn’t tell us to do this peacefully if he were here today.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/01/us/tyre-nichols-funeral-service/index.html

A Conversation with Roy Vaughn Wells: The New York City Shooting in the Aftermath of the September 11, 2001 Attainment

The brutal attack sparked largely peaceful protests from New York to Los Angeles as well as renewed calls for police reform and scrutiny of specialized police units that target guns in high crime areas.

According to his mother,RowVaughn Wells, Nichols was the youngest child in the family and he usually spent Sundays laundry and preparing for the week.

After the health crisis, his mother said that he moved from California to Memphis.

Nichols was a regular at a Germantown, Tennessee, Starbucks where he befriended a group of people who regularly set aside their cellphone at a table and talked mostly about sports, particularly his beloved San Franscisco 49ers, according to friend Nate Spates Jr.

His visits to Starbucks were typically followed by a nap before heading to a his job at FedEx. His mother said he would come home for dinner during his break. His favorite dish is her homemade sesame chicken.

Writing could never capture the essence of creativity that taking pictures provided, but it was a form of self-expression that Nichols used to look at the world more creatively.

“Freaths at the Mississippi Boulevard Church” in Memphis, Tentative Weather Forecast, May 28 – 26 September 2003, Atmospheric Echoes

Services at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis are scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. Central Time. Organizers said the funeral would be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.