Tag: Tyre Nichols

Tyre Nichols killing: Ex-US police officers plead not guilty

In Memphis, a 29-year-old black motorist was beaten to death, and five former officers are accused of second-degree murder.

Tyre Nichols was killed after a violent traffic stop in Memphis, which sparked protests and renewed calls for an end to police violence. In his death, five former US police officers have entered not guilty pleas.

On Friday, before a judge in Shelby County Criminal Court, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, and Justin Smith made their first court appearances with their attorneys.

In relation to the videotaped arrest of Nichols on January 7, the former officers entered not guilty pleas to charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression.

The footage shows the officers beating the 29-year-old father and FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the Nichols family’s legal team likened to the 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King, which was also videotaped.

“I am numb, just numb as I can be right now,” Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, said on Friday as she walked into the courtroom dressed in black.

After the court hearing, Wells dismissed the officers’ not-guilty plea, saying that it was expected.

“I’m going to leave it up to the district attorney’s office to get them prosecuted… and then they’ll find them guilty,” Wells told reporters outside the courtroom. “So, them saying they’re not guilty, that’s a preliminary thing. Everybody’s going to say that.”

She pledged to attend every session in court going forward.

“I want each and every one of those police officers to be able to look me in the face. They haven’t done that yet. They couldn’t even do that today. They didn’t even have the courage to look at me in my face after what they did to my son,” Wells said.

Nichols, who died in hospital three days after the traffic stop, attempted to converse with police as they shouted orders and threatened him with violence during the ordeal.

“You guys are really doing a lot right now. I’m just trying to go home,” he said at one point as he sat on the street and officers stood over him.

“Stop! I’m not doing anything,” Nichols said, just before breaking free and running.

When police caught up to him, he was beaten while being restrained, clubbed with a baton and kicked while on the ground. He cried out for his mother several times.

The five officers, all of whom are Black, have been fired from the police force, and the special unit they were members of has been disbanded. They were all released on bond as they await trial. Their next hearing has been scheduled for May 1.

“Be patient. Work with your attorneys,” Judge James Jones Jr said to the officers during Friday’s court appearance. “There may be some high emotions in this case.”

Nichols’s case has recalled the 2020 killing of George Floyd, who died when a police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His death set off mass protests worldwide that demanded an end to racism and police brutality.

Memphis police said Nichols had been suspected of reckless driving, but no verified evidence of a traffic violation has emerged in public documents or in video footage.

The city’s police chief, Cerelyn “CJ” Davis, has said she has seen no evidence justifying the stop or the officers’ response. Davis also previously said the video footage of the fatal incident depicted “acts that defy humanity”.

One white officer who was also involved in the initial traffic stop has been fired while an additional officer who has not been identified has been suspended.

The Memphis case has stood out for the speed in which the officers were fired and charged.

On Friday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump – who is representing Nichols’ family – warned against “any unnecessary delays” in prosecuting the former officers. “It’s important that we move swiftly towards justice,” He told reporters.

February 17, 2023
Sixth police officer fired over Tyre Nichols’ death

A sixth police officer involved in the events leading to the arrest of Tyre Nichols has been fired, the Memphis police department has said.

An internal police investigation found officer Preston Hemphill had “violated multiple department policies,” including stun gun deployment rules.

Mr Nichols, a 29-year-old father, died in hospital three days after being pulled over and beaten by police.

Five other police officers have already been fired and charged with his murder.

Mr Hemphill, who had served in Memphis’ police force since 2018, was suspended from the force while he was investigated for his role in the arrest of Mr Nichols. But that information was not made public until Monday.

A police statement released on Friday said that as well as breaking rules relating to the deployment of a stun gun, Mr Hemphill had broken rules of “personal conduct” and “truthfulness”.

A lawyer representing Mr Hemphill, Lee Gerald, told Reuters “while we disagree with this termination, Preston Hemphill will continue to cooperate with all authorities in the investigation into the death of Mr. Nichols.”

Videos released by Memphis police last week showed an officer firing a Taser at Mr Nichols after he was pulled from his car during a traffic stop.

Mr Nichols managed to escape the scene, before then being caught up and brutally beaten by officers.

Five officers, who are all black, have been charged with Mr Nichols’ murder, who was also black.

Three Memphis emergency workers have also been fired for failing to provide adequate medical treatment for Mr Nichols at the scene.

A seventh officer has been suspended but has not been identified.

Other police officers, emergency workers and others who prepared documentation of the incident may also face criminal charges, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said in comments cited by Reuters.

Tyre Nichols’ death has led to protests and reignited discussion about police brutality in the US.

At his funeral earlier this week, which was attended by US Vice-President Kamala Harris, his grieving family called for justice and reform.

Source: BBC

February 4, 2023
California police under fire after killing double amputee

Authorities in California are looking into the police killing of a wheelchair user who allegedly refused to drop a butcher’s knife.

Anthony Lowe, a 36-year-old black man with two amputees, was shot and killed on January 26 in the Los Angeles region.

He allegedly threatened officers after stabbing someone. The mother of Mr. Lowe stated, “They killed my son.”

It happens as police killings are being looked at more closely following the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee.

Mr. Lowe’s incident took place in Huntington Park, and onlookers recorded it on camera.

The grainy video shows part of the confrontation, with Mr Lowe holding a long, shiny object and moving on the stumps of his legs away from officers. That clip does not show the shooting.

The Huntington Park Police Department said in a statement on January 30 that officers responded to a stabbing and that the victim provided a description of the suspect.

The suspect had allegedly left his wheelchair, approached the victim and stabbed him in the chest with a 12in butcher knife, before returning to the wheelchair and fleeing the scene.

The victim was left with “a life-threatening stab wound resulting in a collapsed lung and internal bleeding”, the police statement said.

When officers caught up with Mr Lowe, according to the police statement, he “ignored the officer’s verbal commands and threatened to advance or throw the knife at officers”.

Police say that after two unsuccessful attempts to use Tasers to subdue Mr Lowe, they shot him.

Huntington Park Police Lt. Hugo Reynaga told the Los Angeles Times that investigators had obtained video of the shooting from a nearby business but did not plan to release the footage.

He added that Huntington Park officers do not wear body cameras.

“He tried to run away, and every time he turned around and did the motion like he was gonna throw the knife at him, they tased him,” he told the newspaper.

“They were trying to give this guy the less-lethal Taser shock. And because it was ineffective, they had to go to something that was more effective.”

The two officers involved have been placed on paid leave amid an investigation. They have not been named.

On Tuesday, members of Mr Lowe’s family and activists demanded that the officers be held accountable for the shooting.

“They murdered my son, who was in a wheelchair with no legs,” Mr Lowe’s mother, Dorothy, said at a news conference. “They do need to do something about it.”

A spokesperson for the family told the BBC’s US partner, CBS, that Mr Lowe was suffering from a mental health crisis at the time of the shooting.

His sister told the LA Times that he had his legs amputated last year following an incident with police in Texas.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide unit is investigating the Huntington Park shooting, as it does for other smaller police departments in the area.

According to the Mapping Police Violence database, nearly 1,200 people were killed by police in 2022. Officers were charged with a crime in nine of these cases.

February 2, 2023
Videos of Tyre Nichols’ arrest raises unanswered questions

The heartbreaking details of Tyre Nichols’ death are revealed in the video of him being beaten by Memphis police. Nevertheless, some issues remain unclear.

Lawyers for his family said the officers acted like a “pack of wolves” and beat him “like a human pinata”.

Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, who is the first black woman to serve in the role, told the BBC she was shocked. “Something happened that we can’t explain,” she said.

The videos prompted the authorities to act swiftly in firing the five officers last week and then charging them with second-degree murder.

On Friday evening, the videos were released to the public. Here is what we still don’t know.

Could medics have done more?

It is evident from the footage that Mr Nichols is in distress after the beating. He writhes on the ground before being slumped up against a car, unable to properly sit up himself.

Two medics had arrived at 20:41 but the videos appear to show a lack of urgency on their part to treat him. Their employer, the fire department, has suspended them and launched an investigation.

Mr Nichols’ stepfather Rodney Wells has called for criminal charges against them. “They’re just as guilty,” he said.

It took more than 20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. We don’t know how long it is before Mr Nichols is taken to hospital.

Image caption,Tyre Nichols died three days later

“The worst part of it was the lack of humanity after the incident,” Greg Donaldson, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, told the BBC.

The officers “stood around like its as just an afternoon on the street,” he says, while leaving Mr Nichols “laying there on the ground like a piece of garbage”.

We do not know if there is additional footage that could shed more light on what those attending – 10 officers in total plus the medics – did at the time.

Why did police pull him over?

While the four videos contain over an hour of footage total, capturing multiple angles taken from police body cameras and a pole-mounted surveillance camera, one crucial element is missing: how did all this begin?

His family has said that Mr Nichols, an avid photographer, was out driving so he could take pictures of the sunset.

Officers initially said Mr Nichols was pulled over for alleged reckless driving, but police on Friday said there is no evidence to substantiate that claim.

The footage released only begins after police confront him at an intersection at 8:24pm local time – police say the initial traffic stop was not filmed but we don’t know why.

Image caption,Footage of Mr Nichols’ fatal encounter with Memphis police

He is immediately dragged out of the car and thrown to the ground by officers with guns drawn.

“I didn’t do anything!” Mr Nichols says early on, and he complies with the officers’ instructions.

An officer shouts: “Put your hands behind your back before I break your [expletive].”

“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Mr Nichols says to the officers. “I’m just trying to go home.”

Later in the video, we hear an officer telling other officers who have arrived at the scene that Mr Nichols swerved and almost hit his police vehicle, but we see no evidence of this.

Another officer claims he thinks Mr Nichols may be “on something,” which implies they believed he may have been using drugs. There is no known evidence that this was the case, and later in the video, officers say they did not find anything in his car.

Why were the officers so aggressive?

From the get-go, the officers are very hostile, cursing at Mr Nichols and telling him to lie on the ground or they will strike him with a stun gun.

In the videos, Mr Nichols is initially compliant, if confused, by the officers’ hostility. He lies down on the ground as instructed, as they attempt to handcuff him.

But when one of them tries to tase him, he breaks free and tries to run, at which point police pepper spray him.

How he broke free, and why police were so aggressive in the first place, is not clear.

“It was incomprehensible, from beginning to end,” says Mr Donaldson.

“From the car stop, the state of agitation of the police when they pulled the car over, to the pursuit, to the lack of training and lack of strategy in containing and subduing the person they had stopped.”

Why did they continue to assault him?

Mr Donaldson says the video seems to show that police anger grows “as their incompetence seems to be more revealed”.

Spraying his eyes with water after feeling the effects of the pepper spray himself, one of the officers says they should “stomp” him when they catch him.

That is exactly what they do in the videos that captured the second encounter which began at 8:32pm. For several minutes, police punched and kicked him, in the body and the head, while Mr Nichols cried for his mother. One officer is seen wandering away, breathing heavily. Almost a minute later, he returns to the scene, pulls out his extendable baton and strikes Mr Nichols repeatedly.

None of the officers try to stop him, or another who is seen punching Mr Nichols in the head at least five times.

“This incident just ran out of control,” Mr Donaldson says.

What is the cause of his death?

Although it is clear Mr Nichols was severely beaten, we still do not know what actually caused his death in hospital three days later.

In the video, we do see police kick him in the head twice, and there is blood visible around his face.

Attorneys for his family have said that an independent autopsy found that he suffered “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” but the full report has not been made public.

Source: BBC

January 30, 2023
Tyre Nichols’ lawyer asks lawmakers to swiftly adopt police changes
In the wake of Tyre Nichols’ passing, the family’s attorney has urged the US Congress to swiftly approve police reform legislation.

Mr Nichols, 29, was fatally beaten by five police officers in January.

Speaking to US media, Ben Crump urged President Joe Biden to use Mr Nichols’s death to gain support for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

And he said Mr Nichols’s mother was coping with her son’s loss by hoping that his death could lead to change.

“She believes in her heart Tyre was sent here for an assignment and that there is going to be greater good that comes from this tragedy,” Mr Crump said.

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was introduced in 2021 after Mr Floyd was killed by a white Police officer caught by chief smoking ‘weed’ kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes. His death sparked international protests.

The bill would see a federal ban on the use of chokeholds by police and make it easier to bring charges against offending officers.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives – which was then controlled by the Democratic Party – passed the bill in March 2021, but it was later held up by opposition in the Senate.

“Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act passed,” Mr Crump told CNN. The lawyer said if the law did not change, deaths at the hands of police would continue.

Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP civil rights group – also called on legislators to take action.

“By failing to write a piece of legislation, you’re writing another obituary,” Mr Johnson said in a statement. “We can name all the victims of police violence, but we can’t name a single law you have passed to address it.”

But the Republican House of Representatives Judiciary chair Jim Jordan warned politicians to not rush legislation.

“These five individuals did not have any respect for life… I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to stop the kind of evil we saw in that video,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press programme.

Image caption,Mr Nichols died three days after an encounter with police at a traffic stop

A childhood friend of Mr Nichols told the BBC his legacy would be preserved through legal reform. Angelina Paxton said he “always wanted to change the world”.

Ms Paxton said Mr Nichols was “very passionate about Black Lives Matter”.

“He always wanted to make a difference,” she said. “If it gives anyone any comfort out of all those pain that we’re all going through right now, just know that I can guarantee you he’s up there right now smiling, because he finally did what he always wanted to do.”

On Saturday, the Memphis Police Department disbanded the so-called Scorpion special unit of which the police officers now charged with murder were members.

The unit was a 50-person team that was tasked with bringing down crime levels – particularly car thefts and gang-related offences.

Scorpion stood for “Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods”.

The five officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith – were fired from the Memphis police force last week.

Four of the five posted bail and were released from custody by Friday morning, according to jail records.

Lawyers for Mr Martin and Mr Mills have said their clients will plead not guilty.

In an interview with BBC News on Friday, Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis said the Scorpion unit was created to be “more responsive” and “more proactive” to gun violence in the city. But she acknowledged that the officers who brutally beat Tyre Nichols “decided to go off the rails”.

“We are doing an individual evaluation of all units,” she said. “This is a necessary step. We want to be fully transparent to the community.”

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr said two deputy sheriffs who “appeared on the scene following” the confrontation have also been suspending pending an internal investigation.

Source: BBC
January 30, 2023
Memphis dissolves police force associated to the beating of Tyre Nichols

The police chief “permanently deactivates” the unit that included the five officers charged over the death of Tyre Nichols.

The city of Memphis in the United States has disbanded a police unit that included five officers charged with the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist.

Cerelyn ‘CJ’ Davis, the Memphis police chief, announced the move on Saturday, citing a “cloud of dishonour”.

Davis said in a statement it was imperative that the police “take proactive steps in the healing process” and that it was in “the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit”.

She said she made the decision after speaking with members of Nichols’s family, community leaders and other officers.

Her announcement came a day after harrowing videos emerged of the police beating Nichols. It showed the 29-year-old Black man repeatedly screaming “Mom!” as officers kicked, punched and struck him with a baton in his mother’s neighbourhood after a January 7 traffic stop. He was hospitalised and died of his injuries three days later.

Five Black officers involved in the beating were charged on Thursday with murder, assault, kidnapping and other charges.

All have been dismissed from the department.

Protesters marching through downtown Memphis cheered when they heard the unit had been dissolved. One protester said over a bullhorn that “the unit that killed Tyre has been permanently disbanded”.

The unit is composed of three teams of about 30 officers whose stated aim is to target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime.

It had been inactive since Nichols’s January 7 arrest and subsequent beating.

Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, lawyers for the Nichols family, said the deactivation was “a decent and just decision”.

“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,” they said.

Demonstrators gather during a protest in Times Square on Saturday, January 28, 2023, in New York City, in response to the death of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police during a traffic stop [Yuki Iwamura/ AP]

Nichols’s death is the latest high-profile instance of police using excessive force against Black people and other minorities.

The 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes, galvanised worldwide protests over racial injustice.

Rallies calling for justice for Nichols took place in cities across the US on Saturday. Several dozen demonstrators in Memphis blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River towards Arkansas, while crowds also marched in New York City, Los Angeles, California, and Portland, Oregon.

Human rights activists said the video of Nichols’s beating left many unanswered questions about the traffic stop.

Brenda Goss Andrews, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said she was struck by the immediate aggression from officers as soon as they got out of the car.

“It just went to 100. … This was never a matter of de-escalation,” she said. “The young man never had a chance from the moment that he was stopped.”

Goss Andrews added that the video also raised questions about the other law enforcement officers who stood by as Nichols lay motionless on the pavement. “Nobody tried to stop anything,” she said. “They have a duty to intervene, a duty to render care.”

Davis, the Memphis police chief, told The Associated Press news agency that the department could not substantiate the reason for the stop.

“We don’t know what happened,” she said, adding, “All we know is the amount of force that was applied in this situation was over the top.”

Davis has said other officers are under investigation, and Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said two deputies were relieved of duty without pay while their conduct is investigated.

Rodney Wells, Nichols’s stepfather, said the family would “continue to seek justice”, and those who failed to render aid are “just as culpable as the officers who threw the blows”.

A Memphis police spokeswoman declined to comment on the other officers’ conduct.

Reverend Al Sharpton, a prominent human rights activist, said on Saturday that the beating was particularly egregious because the officers were also Black.

“Your Blackness will not stop us from fighting you,” Sharpton said in a speech in Harlem, New York. “These five cops not only disgraced their names, they disgraced our race,” he added.

January 29, 2023
Tyre Nichols not seen to resist in police beating video

Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with murder following a traffic stop, and video of the incident shows them punching and kicking a driver for several minutes as he cries out for his mother.

Tyre Nichols, 29, is beaten by police in the videos from his arrest on January 7; there are no indications that he was resisting.

US Vice President Joe Biden described the “horrific” video as “deeply painful.”

Attorneys for Mr. Nichols’ family compared the assault to the 1991 beating by Los Angeles police of motorist Rodney King.

Peaceful protests took place in Memphis on Friday night after the video was released, with some demonstrators blocking a major highway in the city, while small-scale demonstrations were held elsewhere in the country.

Many protesters held banners demanding justice for Mr Nichols and an end to “police terror”.

This article contains descriptions of violence that some people may find distressing

Police initially said Mr Nichols had been stopped on suspicion of reckless driving, which has not been substantiated. He died in hospital three days later, on 10 January.

Mr Nichols was black, as are all five officers charged in the case.

Memphis Police Department released four graphic videos of the traffic stop and its violent aftermath on Friday, totalling more than an hour of footage.

Image caption,Mr Nichols died three days after an encounter with police at a traffic stop

The first clip shows officers pulling Mr Nichols out of his vehicle and shouting at him to get on the ground.

“I didn’t do anything!” he says. Officers demand that he lie down flat.

“Get on the [expletive] ground!” one officer shouts, as another is heard saying: “Tase him!”

An officer shouts: “Put your hands behind your back before I break your [expletive].”

“You guys are really doing a lot right now,” Mr Nichols says to the officers. “I’m just trying to go home.”

Within seconds one of the officers fires a Taser at Mr Nichols, who leaps up and manages to run away.

A separate video, from a CCTV camera mounted on a utility pole, shows officers beating Mr Nichols after catching up with him in a residential area.

Two officers are seen holding Mr Nichols down while others take turns kicking and punching him and striking him with an expandable baton.

They drag him across the ground and prop him up against a squad car. More than 20 minutes elapse until an ambulance is seen arriving.

The third and fourth videos show police body camera footage of the beating, with Mr Nichols being held down, pepper-sprayed and assaulted as he repeatedly shouts: “Mom!”

The videos also show officers milling about recounting details of the incident as Mr Nichols lies slumped against the car.

Some of them claim Mr Nichols “swung” at them or reached for their guns, though neither allegation is clear from the released video.

Officers can also be heard saying that nothing was found in his car.

Mr Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, has said her son was only about 230ft (70m) from home when Memphis police officers “murdered him”.

Representatives of the family have described Mr Nichols as the father of a four-year-old son and a keen skateboarder who had recently enrolled in a photography class. He worked for the FedEx parcel delivery firm.

One of the lawyers, Antonio Romanucci, said: “This young man, by definition of the law in this state, was terrorised.”

Image caption,From left: Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean

The five officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith – were fired last week.

They were taken into custody on Thursday and each faces charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

Four of the five posted bail and were released from custody by Friday morning, according to jail records.

Lawyers for Mr Martin and Mr Mills have said their clients will plead not guilty.

Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis described the five officers’ actions as “heinous, reckless and inhumane”.

With protests anticipated, she told US media that local officials had decided to release the video on Friday evening so that schoolchildren and commuters would have time to get home.

Dozens of protesters shut down a road bridge in the Memphis area on Friday night, while small-scale demonstrations were held in other US cities, including New York and Washington DC.

The protests around the country were largely peaceful, which Mr Nichols’ family had called for, saying they didn’t “want any type of disturbance”.

One protester at the Memphis rally, 21-year-old Kyrion, told the BBC he had dreamed as a child of joining the city’s police force, but now that dream was shattered.”It’s just wicked, the system is forever going to be wicked,” he said. “Which is why I’m out here today, as of right now I can’t count on [police] to protect me.

“How do I know the man is not going to put his knee into my neck, or hold me down and beat me into a pulp?”

After the videos were released, Shelby County Sheriff’s Office said two of its deputies had also been relieved from duty pending an investigation into their conduct.

January 28, 2023
Tyre Nichols bodycam footage: What we know about the arrest video
Video footage of 29-year-old father Tyre Nichols being beaten by police in Memphis is being released later, with the city braced for protests. So what do we know about what is in it?

“Sickening” and “appalling” are just some of the words used by the few people to have already seen footage of Mr Nichols’s fatal encounter with police in the US city of Memphis, Tennessee.

He died in hospital days after being pulled over for alleged reckless driving, and struggling with five officers who have since lost their jobs and been charged with his murder.

Bodycam video of the arrest, which includes Mr Nichols calling out for his mother, is due to be made public on Friday.

Only a small number of people have seen it, including the family, their legal team and several officials.

Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for the Nichols family, described the father-of-one as being treated like a “human piñata” in the footage.

The arrest “was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes,” he said.

Image caption,Mr Nichols died three days after an encounter with police at a traffic stop

The video will be released in four parts from around 18:00 local time (00:00 GMT).

In all, there is thought to be about an hour of footage, including a few minutes of Mr Nichols interacting with the five officers accused of his murder. There will be redactions to anonymise those not employed by the police or the city.

An audio file of the police radio, which has been shared by various US outlets, gives some indication of the struggle that took place.

While details have so far been limited, the hope is that the video will provide a clear picture of the sequence of events that ultimately led to Mr Nichols dying.

This is what we know about the events of the night of 7 January which the video is expected to depict:
- Mr Nichols, a black man, was stopped by five officers, who are also black, on his way home after taking photos of a sunset at a local park, an attorney for the family said
- He was pulled over for alleged reckless driving, at which point the first confrontation occurred
- A second confrontation took place after Mr Nichols fled on foot, and officers caught up with and tried to arrest him
- Mr Nichols later complained of shortness of breath and was taken to hospital, where he was listed in a critical condition
- Officials said Mr Nichols “succumbed to his injuries” on 10 January but provided no further details. An official cause of death has not yet been disclosed
At another press conference, David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said he was “sickened” by what he had seen.

The city’s police chief Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman to hold the role in Memphis, recalled hearing Mr Nichols “call out for his mother” in the video.

“The disregard for humanity… that’s what really pulls at your heartstrings,” she told CNN.

The five officers are in custody facing the same charges: second degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

They were fired from their jobs at the Memphis Police Department last week.

Lawyers for two of the ex-officers said their clients planned to fight the charges.

“No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die,” a lawyer for one of the men said. He said he had not been shown the video.
January 27, 2023
Tyre Nichols: Biden calls for decorum ahead of police beating video release

President Joe Biden is pleading with demonstrators in Tennessee to keep their demonstrations peaceful as authorities prepare to release video of an arrest that resulted in the death of a motorist.

Tyre Nichols, 29, was severely beaten, according to bodycam video of the encounter that will be released on Friday, according to the family’s attorneys.

After Mr. Nichols passed away a few days after a traffic stop on January 7, five now-fired police officers are being charged with murder.

Police in Memphis have increased patrols amid reports that the city is on edge.

“I’m sickened by what I saw,” Tennessee Bureau of Investigation director David Rausch said on Thursday after reviewing the footage, describing the officers’ actions as “absolutely appalling”.

Image caption,From left: Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean

Mr Nichols, a black man, was stopped by five police officers, who are also black, on his way home after taking photos of a sunset at a local park, an attorney for the family said.

Officials say he was suspected of reckless driving.

A first confrontation occurred as Mr Nichols attempted to flee on foot when officers approached his car, the local authorities said.

They said a second confrontation happened when officers tried to arrest him.

Mr Nichols later complained of shortness of breath and was taken to hospital, police said, where he was listed in a critical condition.

A lawyer for Mr Nichols’ family said the bodycam footage showed Mr Nichols being pepper-sprayed, struck with a stun gun, restrained and kicked.

He likened the incident to the notorious footage of Los Angeles police officers beating black motorist Rodney King more than 30 years ago.

All five of the officers face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were booked into jail on Thursday. They all joined the Memphis Police Department in the last six years, and were fired last week.

‘Failing of basic humanity’

President Biden released a statement on Thursday appealing for calm as authorities prepare to release the footage on Friday evening, local time.

“I join Tyre’s family in calling for peaceful protest,” he said. “Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable.”

The city’s police chief, Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman in that role in Memphis, also called for calm amid what she said was a “failing of basic humanity toward another individual.”

https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.47.2/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

Watch: Tennessee official on bodycam footage of Tyre Nichols

The Nichols family and their legal team privately reviewed the video footage of the arrest earlier this week.

“He was a human piñata,” lawyer Antonio Romanucci said of its contents. “It was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes.”

In a news conference on Thursday, lawyers for two of the ex-officers said their clients planned to fight the charges.

“No-one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die,” said a lawyer for one of the men.

Officials said Mr Nichols “succumbed to his injuries” on 10 January, but provided no further details. An official cause of death has not yet been disclosed.

His family say he will be remembered as a “good kid” who enjoyed photography and skateboarding.

The father-of-one, who worked at the parcel delivery company FedEx, had Crohn’s disease and suffered severe weight loss, relatives say.

Reverend Al Sharpton, a US civil rights leader, told the BBC the alleged crime was particularly painful because of the officers’ race.

“We fought to put blacks on the police force,” he said. “For them to act in such a brutal way is more egregious than I can tell you.”

https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.47.2/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

Watch: Emotional testimony by residents over deadly traffic stop

“I do not believe these five black police officers would have done this had he been a young white man,” he added.

California-based trial lawyer Adanté Pointer said instances of black men being killed by black officers rarely make the news.

“This case exemplifies that it is not simply a white versus black issue, but instead that this is a power dynamic that plays itself out no matter the race of the police officers,” he told the BBC.

The FBI and the Department of Justice have opened a civil rights investigation into Mr Nichols’ death.

The officers involved are members of a special team known as Scorpion – short for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods”.

The unit, which was created to police high-crime areas, is now under review, along with all of the city’s specialised units, according to the city’s police chief.

January 27, 2023