Four former police officers in Memphis have had their licenses revoked because of the murder charges against them
A 20-Year-Old Man Solved by Two Suspended Washington, DC, Officers In 2020: The Case of Hylton-Brown
Two suspended Washington, DC, officers have been found guilty on charges related to the death of a 20-year-old man during a 2020 police pursuit, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a news release Wednesday.
The charge of second degree murder carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. The obstruction of justice charge is on top of a maximum of 20 years for the two defendants.
In October 2020, Hylton-Brown, 20, was driving a Revel scooter on the sidewalk without a helmet, prompting officers to turn on their emergency lights and attempt to make a traffic stop, CNN previously reported citing an indictment.
That began a police pursuit that spanned more than 10 blocks and at times accelerated “to more than double the residential speed limit,” the indictment said. When the officers followed him into an alleyway, he was hit by a civilian vehicle as he exited the alley.
The Metropolitan Police Department supported the United States Attorney’s Office review process, which began at the beginning of the process, according to a statement from the chief. We have confidence in our judicial system, and we trust that the jury examined all the facts, deliberated carefully, and arrived at their decision fairly.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/us/hylton-brown-crash-police-guilty/index.html
Investigating a young Memphis man’s death after a violent encounter with a uniformed officer in the area of a high-velocity shooting
CNN has reached out to Sutton’s attorney, J. Michael Hannon, but has not received a response. CNN is attempting to get in touch with an attorney.
The investigation into the death of a young Memphis man after a police beating will go on despite questions over whether there will be additional charges.
A day after the official said a seventh police officer was fired and other were suspended or left the force because of the brutal encounter, the anticipated release comes. Five officers have been criminally charged and six have been fired.
Ben Crump, the family attorney for the suspect, said that there will be further repercussions but that he doesn’t know if that will lead to criminal charges.
When asked whether anyone new will face criminal charges now that the city’s investigation is finished, Williams told CNN on Tuesday: “Not at this time.” Mulroy’s office previously told CNN it would wait for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to conclude an investigation before deciding on more charges.
The video could be inflammatory and officials knew that. “The best solution was to expedite the investigation and to expedite the consideration of charges so that the charges could come first and then the release of the video,” he added.
There were videos of the arrest, which showed that officers from the police department’s special SCORPION team punched, kicked, pepper- sprayed and used a baton on Nichols while he was restrained.
The Memphis police stopped him for reckless driving and then he died three days later. Police said he fled the scene and was taken into custody after two confrontations with officers.
“Your on-duty conduct was unjustly, blatantly unprofessional and unbecoming for a sworn public servant,” the Memphis Police Department wrote in requesting that Haley and the other officers be decertified.
The Memphis Police Department is Changing the Lives Of The Black Man Who Defeated, Kicked And Sprayed Like A Black Man
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.
He was a devoted son who had a tattoo of his mother’s name on his arm, a loving father to a 4-year-old boy, and a free spirit with a passion for skateboarding and sunsets.
“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.”
“That reprehensible conduct we saw in that video, we think this was part of the culture of the SCORPION unit,” Crump said. “So we demanded that they disbanded immediately before we see anything like this happen again.”
The mayor is correct in shutting it down. These actions are not a representation of the Memphis Police Department.
“We just have to change the culture … We need to hold people Accountable. We must let the legacy of Mr. Nichols tell us that there will be police reform in this country as well.
“We saw a very peaceful and direct sense of protest in the city of Memphis, and I think it’s because maybe we do have faith and hope that the system is going to get it right this time,” Easter-Thomas said.
The Memphis Police Chiefs After Tyre Nichols: “Do You Wanna Shoot Me?” Appellate Hearing Attorney Michael Mills Revisited
And on Thursday, the officers – all of them also Black – were charged with second-degree murder and kidnapping amid mounting public pressure to release footage of the incident.
Mills Jr., the defense attorney for one of the officers indicted, denied that he crossed the lines that others crossed during the confrontation. The attorney, Blake Ballin, told CNN Mills was a “victim” of the system he worked within.”
Other first responders have been fired or suspended in the weeks since Nichols’ death. The police department announced that a sixth officer had been fired and a seventh relieved of duty, while the fire department fired two EMTs and a lieutenant after an internal review. There could be as many as 13 police officers disciplined.
He said that he hoped the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would be passed by the federal government.
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 applauded Memphis Police Chief Davis for “doing the right thing,” by not waiting six months to a year to fire the officers who beat up Tyre Nichols.
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. You are in control of Black America’s blood. Stand up and do something.
The Memphis Man’s Case: Creating More Trust and Justice for the Saturated Police Unit in the State of Tennessee, as Sensited by Towns
In the wake of the death of the man, top Democrats in Tennessee’s state legislature say they will propose legislation to target police training, discipline and mental health.
The legislation should be passed by both the majority and minority sides of the legislature, said Rep. Joe Towns Jr.
You’d be hard pressed to look at the footage of the man and not think about what happened to him. What would happen to the dog in this county if it was beaten like that? Towns said.
Two days after a video of the brutal beating of the Memphis man by police was made public, the official response 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.
“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 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.”
The Memphis Traffic Stop Crisis: Resolving the Past with New Measures and Reforming the Law Against Police Violation and Other Crimes
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.
Among the issues the bills aim to address are implicit bias training, 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.
The Republicans have a large majority in the General Assembly, but Democrats said they were confident they could win bipartisan support because of the magnitude of the incident, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
“We’re going to continue to see this proliferation without federal police reform, we can’t keep up with them, and we’re in trouble because we don’t have the funds to keep up with it,” he told ABC.
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.
Five former police officers have been indicted on charges of murder and kidnapping. The police body camera and street video of the deadly encounter after a traffic stop were made public one 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.
“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.
It’s not uncommon for police officers to use deadly force in the future, but the swift filing of charges and video releases don’t match what happened in the past.
The Memphis police department wants to decertification the five officers that have been charged with murder and prevent them from ever working in law enforcement again. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis signed each of the five requests to decertify the officers.
Still, law enforcement and legal analysts are now pointing to Memphis’ actions as a new example of how to maintain trust in the community after fatal police encounters.
“We are now looking at cops through a different prism and when cops don’t act, when cops allow an event to happen over four, five, ten minutes, then maybe they should be held responsible to an even higher standard,” Mark O’Mara, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor, said Saturday. “So we are in a new era, I think, of looking at police behavior under a different eye towards possible prosecution.”
Memphis police made rapid criminal charges: a blueprint for future political and policing decisions in cases of brutality crimes, including a death of a Memphis officer
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 warned “immediate and appropriate action” would be taken after observing the serious nature of the officers’ conduct during the stop. The department was “serving notice to the officers involved,” she said.
They were terminated for failing in their duty to render aid, excessive use of force, and duty to intervene.
“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 charging the officers and bringing them into custody, as soon as possible.
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 man was sentenced to 81 months in prison for second-degree murder and 16 counts of battery with a firearm. Four officers were fired and three others were found not guilty on charges of covering up details from the killing.
Protests of the Memphis shooting happened at the intersection of Interstate 55 and Interstate 55 in Memphis, Tenn. (The Memphis case isn’t the Arkansas case)
CNN law enforcement said “the last thing they want to do is take a high tension event and then add that thing that’s going to increase tension and people have a whole weekend ahead of them.”
But, Miller said, the delay allowed authorities to show the public “the wheels of justice are turning and turning relatively quickly.” The extra time allowed officials to unify 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 across the country, such as in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Nashville and New York, are either monitoring or having plans in place for protests.
“We’ve watched so many of these cases over the last several years,” Martin said. Law enforcement authorities come forward and reveal information to the community, and we typically see a 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 one taken into custody.
When paramedics arrived minutes after the officers left, they left Nichols on the pavement without any help.
The Memphis Police Department is Going Through a Gap in the Investigation of the December 26th Shooting and the Decay of Tyre Nichols
The severity of the beating to the public and the widespread condemnation from the residents and police officials alike came about because of the body camera videos and surveillance footage that were released on January 27. The video shook a nation long accustomed to videos of police brutality – especially against people of color – and spurred protests and vigils in Memphis and other major US cities.
The chief of the Memphis Police Department said last month that the death was indicative of a gap in the street crime unit.
She told CNN Saturday that all of this was preventable. Young officers on the job, doing their job on a regular basis is what you have. This was not something that they were used 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 who were on the scene of the incident are being looked at by the district attorney.
Prosecutors moved “extraordinarily quick” with charges against the five officers “primarily responsible for the death of Tyre Nichols,” the district attorney said.
The assistant district attorney said that “Memphis and the whole world need to know that what’s right is done in this case.” It is important that the people who committed crimes are brought to justice.
Warren said that they need to make sure that they look at where they were weak and what went wrong with their procedures.
But Sink already announced the bottom line on Tuesday: Seven police officers were fired, three were suspended, one retired and two had their investigations dropped as result of the probes, she said.
Police identified one of the two officers as Preston Hemphill, who is White. Police are unwilling to say if Hemphill is being paid.
The body cam video did not show the second site where the district attorney has said Nichols was beaten and suffered his serious injuries.
Investigating the Memphis Police Officers’ Bludgeon Tyre Nichols During the August 2nd Street Assassination
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 chief said in a news release that the investigation found that the EMTs failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols, and that they responded based on the initial nature of the call.
Attorneys for two police officers who were fired 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 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 is being praised for her swift actions in the case, but she also created the SCORPION police unit that the charged officers were a 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 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.
The Nichols family is expected to hold a press conference Tuesday night at Memphis’ Mason Temple Church of God in Christ headquarters, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous last speech the day before he was assassinated in that city, according to a press release from their attorney Ben Crump.
In the days since Tennessee officials released video footage of Memphis police officers brutally beating Tyre Nichols, law enforcement has faced a new wave of criticism.
“If you put out statements that are indicating one thing and then the video footage released later on shows completely the opposite, that’s problematic for trying to build police-community relations,” said Headley.
The Minneapolis Police Department responded to the Forgery in Progress on May 25, 2020: A man and a woman kneeling on his neck and repeatedly begging for help
Minneapolis police officers responded to a forgery in progress and arrested a suspect on May 25, 2020. “The suspect was taken into custody and officers noted he appeared to be suffering from medical distress,” said the press release. 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 died that day.
When the New York Police Department disclosed Eric Garner’s death in 2014, a police spokesperson said a man was “being placed in custody, went into cardiac arrest and died,” according to a New York Daily News article at the time.
In 2018, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office first said that 23-year-old Dujuan Armstrong died of a drug overdose inside the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Calif. Body-camera footage released later shows that officers put a restraining jacket on him before he became unresponsive. An autopsy found that Armstrong died of asphyxiation due to the restraints.
For example, John Elder was the Minneapolis Police Department’s public information director in 2020 and wrote the initial statement about Floyd’s death. He told the Los Angeles Times that he got his information from sergeants and computer-aided dispatch, and that he hadn’t seen any video footage of the encounter before writing the press release.
This had zero intent to be dishonest or disingenuous. Had we known that this [situation] was what we saw on the video, that statement would have been completely different,” Elder told the newspaper.
When there are discrepancies in the report or in the statements that are put out that don’t match the evidence, the conflict comes in. “When the language is used to abdicate responsibility it is particularly so.” she said.
She said she worked with a company that would bring in community leaders to explain an incident to the media. Departments can also acknowledge if they are still looking into what happened, she said, including if they haven’t reviewed any video evidence yet.
Police said there had been an altercation between officers and a driver suspected of reckless driving. The suspect fled the scene on foot, and another “confrontation occurred” as officers tried to take him into custody, the statement said.
The Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University’s executive director, Justin Hansford, said that it is a very problematic situation and goes back to what happened with the Derek Chauvin case. “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.”
Troopers said Greene’s death was “caused by crash-related blunt force chest trauma that resulted in a fractured sternum and ruptured aorta” and said they used force “for their own personal safety and for the safety of the public,” according to court documents.
Videos from police body camera and dash camera showed a different story of what happened near the city of Monroe. The footage was obtained by the Associated Press and shows officers kicking and tasing someone.
Hollingsworth died in a car crash in September 2020. Five law enforcement officers were indicted on state charges of negligent homicide, malfeasance in office, obstruction of justice, and accessory after the fact.
George Floyd was arrested in May 2020 and officers were able to take him into custody due to his symptoms of distress, as stated in the initial news release. Officers called for an ambulance. The man, believed to be in his 40’s, was pronounced dead after being transported to the medical center.
One bystander who took video, Darnella Frazier, testified during Chauvin’s trial. “I heard George Floyd saying — I can’t breathe. Please. Get off of me. She testified that she couldn’t breathe. It seemed like he knew it was over for his mom… He cried for her.
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.
How the wrong person was shot and killed: A new trial for allegedly shooting a Chicago police officer into his girlfriend, Kenneth Walker, and Laquan McDonald
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 thought the officers to be invaders.
The officers took a total of thirty-two shots, when it was not safe 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, who was fired in June 2020, pleaded not guilty.
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.
In the wake of Laquan McDonald’s 2014 fatal shooting by a police officer, 11 Chicago police officers were accused of making false statements to exaggerate 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. McDonald was shot 16 times.
Thirteen months later, a judge ordered the release of the grainy dashboard police camera footage of the shooting, and the fallout was immediate. McDonald walked away from the officers, not charging at them.
The Life of Nichols, the Black Black Person killed in Memphis by a Chicago cop, and the Rev. Al Sharpton at the White House
The life of the man, who was shot and killed by police in Memphis, will be remembered at the funeral service on Wednesday.
The release of the video of the attack on Nichols shook a nation used to videos of police brutality against people of color. The officers charged in the case are Black.
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.
The younger brother of George Floyd, Philonise Floyd, was rumored to be in attendance, following his death in May 2020 when an ex Minneapolis cop knelt on his neck for more than 9 minutes.
White House officials including Director for the Office of Public Engagement, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Senior advisor to the PresidentMitch Landrieu will be at the funeral.
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.
“You thought that no one would respond. You thought people wouldn’t care. The Vice President will come to his funeral tomorrow, according to Sharpton.
“My brother was the most peaceful person you ever met. He’s never lifted a finger to nobody. Dupree said he never raised his voice to anyone. “If my brother was here today and he had to say something, he would tell us to do this peacefully.”
Taking pictures: A memory of Rowvaughn Wells, the youngest of four children, and the first son of a Memphis native
There were mostly peaceful protests, and renewed calls for police reform and scrutiny of police units that target guns in high crime areas, after the brutal attack.
According to his mother RowVaughn Wells, the baby was the smallest of four children, and he spent Sundays doing laundry and preparing for the week.
His mother has said that he moved to Memphis from California prior to the Covid-19 flu, and remained there after the lock downs.
A group of people at Starbucks who frequently set aside their cellphone at a table and talk about sports were friends of Nichols’, according to his friend.
His day usually began with a quick visit to Starbucks followed by a nap before heading to FedEx. His mother said that during his break he would go home for dinner. His favorite dish: her homemade sesame chicken.
Taking pictures was a way for Nichols to look at the world in a more creative way, and it was something he could never capture in writing.
The Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church: An Officer-In-Charge Investigation of a Domestic Violence Violation involving a Person and a Woman
The Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis is open for services on Saturdays. The time is determined by central time. Organizers said the funeral would be livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.
The two disciplined officers focused on whether to file reports about the incidents and not examine if the use of force was justified.
Haley, 30, was commissioned as an officer in January 2021, the records show. He worked as a correctional officer. His attorney has not respond to requests for comment.
The hearing officer wrote that “Officer Haley took full ownership for the accident and was very humble during the hearing” and the violation was dismissed.
Mills graduated from West Virginia State University with a degree in criminal justice and started working for the Memphis Police Department in March.
In March 2019, Mills violated procedure when he dropped his personal digital assistant (PDA) into the street while entering his squad car. The device was then run over by a separate car.
It was Mills’ first violation and he got a written reprimanded because he immediately reported the incident to his union representative.
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 that took place in August of 2021, Mills explained that he didn’t realize the form had to be used because of his actions.
A handgun was found in the rear passenger side of a car used by Martin and his partner. Martin said he failed to do a proper pre- and post-shift inspection, and only inspected the car 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. Additionally, the officers did not do inspections after the suspects left the vehicle, as is protocol. Martin was suspended without pay for three days, according to the files.
A fellow officer and lieutenant at the hearing said that Martin is not one to “shove responsibility” and the victim did not want a report.
“Memphis police officers are instructed by department policy and state law to report on domestic abuse calls in a comprehensive manner,” the hearing officer wrote. “Officer’s can not rely on the victim’s consent or willingness to cooperate with prosecution when they make an arrest.”
“Officer Martin is respectful when dealing with others regardless of their sex, race, age, or rank,” the evaluation stated. “He approaches his calls with a positive attitude and is well received when dealing with the public. Not a single person that he has arrested has complained.
Smith started at the department. In January 2021, he was passing a vehicle and crashed into its rear, causing it to spin and crash into a third vehicle, which had two people inside. All parties were sent to the hospital in non-critical condition.
Smith said that the driver of the second vehicle went right and left his lane at the same time. He admitted to speeding, but said his memory was somewhat unclear due to his minor head injury from the airbag, according to a summary from the disciplinary hearing.
According to documents from the Tennessee Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission, Haley sent photos to other officers and a female acquaintances after he stood over Nichols as he lay propped against a police car.
The lawyers for the other officers either declined to comment or didn’t reply to requests from The Associated Press.
Haley, who was driving an official car and wearing a black sweatshirt over his head, sprayed Nichols directly in the eyes with a chemical irritant spray after forcing him out of his car using loud profanity.
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office is Reopening the Cases Against Five Shelby County Officers Charged with Second-degree Murder
“You and others were captured on body worn camera making multiple disrespectful comments and laughing while boasting about their involvement,” the decertification charges against Mills said.
They said that Mills failed to give an accurate account of what happened and that they accused him of walking away and decontaminated himself from chemical irritant spray.
A hearing officer wrote a letter to Justin Smith, and said that he struck the person with a closed fist in the face because his partner couldn’t handcuff him. You sprayed the subject with the irritant spray and then held the individual’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.”
In addition to putting the officers’ other cases up for review, county officials put their names on a so-called list of police officials accused of being dishonest or facing criminal charges.
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.”
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 that she is afraid that others have been treated this way. You are definitely going to have to reopen cases if you discover that someone might have been convicted for something they didn’t do.
Memphis PD Officers: Training, Supervision and Training after the Nichols Killing of the 29-Year-old Black Man
The death of the 29-year-old Black man comes at a critical juncture in American law enforcement, as departments across the country – including the Memphis PD – struggle to recruit qualified officers and fill shifts, lure candidates with signing bonuses worth thousands of dollars, and at times curtail standards and training in a desperate bid to strengthen patrols amid rising gun violence, according to law enforcement experts.
“These are all lessons of history,” said Corey, the former NYPD chief. The profession needs to be attractive to the type of people you want to recruit. It’s not that people have lost interest in policing. They don’t think it’s a viable occupation.
The five men were a part of a street crime unit that was formed last year as part of the city’s strategy to combat violence. The SCORPION unit focused on crimes such as homicides, robberies and assaults.
Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, said Nichols’ killing raises questions about “how those officers were trained and supervised and selected.”
Over time you want to look at the background of those officers. The hiring process – that will be important,” he said. “In this case we don’t know enough yet.”
“We train and we retrain these officers, just like specialized units around the country,” she said. The supervision of these officers working in specialized units needs to be present.
Davis said during the Memphis city council meeting Tuesday that training wasn’t an issue with the unit. She said the killing was related toegos and a wolf pack mentality.
There is not a change in culture overnight. You know, there is a saying in law enforcement that ‘culture eats policy for lunch.’ We don’t want to just have good policies because policies can be navigated around,” she said. “We want to ensure that we have the right people in place to ensure our culture is evolving.”
The murder of George Floyd made prospective police applicants think twice because it made them think about if they want to be a cop. “Wellsy said so.”
It was already a challenging environment to hire a police officer before the murder of Tyre Nichols.
The Memphis Police Department’s First Few Years: When the Standards and People’s Choices Affected Their Selection Processes, and Why Did They End up Being Closer?
The department was budgeted for 2,300 officers last year, CNN affiliate WMC reported. In 2015, nearly 200 Memphis police officers resigned over changes to pension and benefit plans, according to WMC.
Davis, who retired last year, said that there had been sergeants as acting lieutenants. “Hundreds of people did it over a period of time because we didn’t have enough supervisors. A lot of people ran out the door.
“Departments around the country … are offering between $25,000 and $30,000 signing bonuses,” Wexler said. Police departments have been forced to do things like offering signing bonuses and modifying the standards for hiring because of a national shortage of applicants.
According to Greg Umbach, associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, there is a correlation between the standards of new recruits and their behavior.
It’s been proven over the years that the number of cops meeting higher qualifications, in particular a college degree, matters more than the number of civilian complaints a department gets.
Quality of supervision and the quantity of good officers are affected by the degree to which the pipeline of good officers is low.
The first thought of any police sergeant watching that video is, “Where was the supervision and why did they think this was okay.”
“If you pepper spray someone, you should call a supervisor.” Davis, who was with the company for 22 years, said. That is just policy. I can not explain why they didn’t.
The behavior of the former officers who beat Nichols did not surprise him, given the lack of training and standards and the growing number of officers who arelured by monetary incentives and without experience on the city’s streets.
The standards kept going down, said Davis, who was in charge of recruiting. They start throwing money at people to lure them in.
He added, “For the most part, everyone who came asked us about the money.” How long did it take them to keep on working? Do I have to do a year? Two years? Nobody wants to make a career out of it. It was the money.”
The Memphis Police Department used to be referred to as the ” best in blue”, according to Davis, who works for the department. “It’s not that kind of job anymore.”
In the 1980’s, a large part of the Miami Police Department’s officers were suspended or fired after being implicated in a corruption scandal. Nearly 20 former officers were convicted on various state and federal charges, including using their police powers as a racketeering enterprise to commit murder.
In 1990, an investigation into the hiring and training of police officers in Washington, DC by the General Accounting Office found that a hiring rush during the previous decade – prompted by a wave of drug and gun violence – led to cutting corners on recruiting, background checks and training.
He added, “What we ask of our cops is that they think like lawyers, speak like psychologists, and perform like athletes but we pay them as common laborers. A $20 an hour salary for a starting officer in New York City is about $42,000 a year. It also means that the employees at McDonald’s have no stress, trauma or risk and can make up to fifteen dollars an hour.
The family of a man killed by a Shreveport, Louisiana police officer has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the state police
The family of a man who was shot and killed by a Shreveport, Louisiana police officer has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the officer.
According to the Louisiana State Police, he was shot and killed by police earlier this month after they responded to a domestic violence call. 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 an unarmed man who posed no threat is objectively unreasonable, excessive and wholly without justification,” the lawsuit alleges.
Tyler is on paid administrative leave while the state police investigation is pending, the Shreveport Police Department told CNN. The officer has been with the department since May 2021, Chief Wayne Smith said.
In Louisiana, four state troopers and another law enforcement officer were indicted on charges last year stemming from the in-custody killing of 49-year-old Ronald Greene, a Black man violently beaten by officers during an arrest.
Davis asked the community to be patient as they continued to investigate 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 with the help of 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.
“Louisiana State police has the case under investigation,” Laura Fulco, the first assistant district attorney for Caddo Parish, said. It is still being investigated.
Remembering Tyre Nichols: A Black man in a courtroom in America, not a black man in an American prisoner’s law. Tyre Wells and the Bean Attorney John Keith Perry, the attorney for Ta
All of the men were released on bond, and stood by as their lawyers entered pleas on their behalf. The parents of Tyre were seated in the courtroom gallery with their attorney.
Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, called Friday’s arraignment “the beginning of the process of justice,” and said she and her family were determined to see it through to the end.
She said the defendants didn’t have the courage to look at her after what they did to her son. “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 see the involvement of each individual defendants and in that particular case he was doing his job, no longer, no less,” he said. “He never struck anybody. He did his job.
“Let’s not forget that my client is a Black man in a courtroom in America,” he said. I will make sure the system doesn’t fail and that a fair outcome is achieved.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/17/1157756023/memphis-tyre-nichols-police-officers-court-charges
The Scene of Tyre’s Killing: The Memphis Police are Ready to Detect the Victims of a Crime-by-Crime
If the five officers are charged with second-degree murder they could face up to 60 years in prison. 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.
“Memphis is so violent that you get used to it,” said L.J. Abraham, an activist with the Tennessee-based Equity Alliance. “I don’t think we expected to see a person who was gentle and kind and not violent, as someone like Tyre was pulled from his car and beaten to death.” If that happened to him it would be a nightmare for anyone.
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 city is ready to release more information to the public on Wednesday, including more video and audio from the scene of the man’s death, according to the chief legal officer.
The city’s police and fire departments are conducting investigations to determine whether employees involved in the incident violated their department policies.
The previous body camera footage will be released to the pubic in late January, but new video and audio will be released by the Director of Communications via Vimeo, Sink said.
Sink said the city will also release redacted documents related to the charges and administrative investigations against those involved in Nichols’ death.
One committee member asked if any of the officers who hit Nichols were still employed by the department. One of the suspended officers placed his hands on the legs, Sink said.
Video of Nichols’s beatings: Investigation of the aforesaid 7th officer in the Memphis sheriff’s office
The additional video footage would be released on Wednesday afternoon because the city’s internal investigations into the beatings have ended.
The unreleased footage most notably will include audio of what was said after the beating and after an ambulance took Nichols to a hospital, and it could play an investigative role as his office contemplates additional charges, the county prosecutor previously told CNN.
A representative for Mulroy’s office told CNN that potential charges of “false reporting” related to the initial police report were being investigated.
She said that the investigative files needed to be redacted, and that they will be posted online when that is done.
It was the first time the city said a seventh cop was fired. That person’s name and details about what the officer is accused of doing, were not immediately released.
Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr. each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Second-degree murder in Tennessee is considered a Class A felony punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison.
The sheriff’s office suspended two of its employees for five days without pay because of their part in the case, according to a news release.
If the three former officers fail to comply with the POST’s decision, they will be notified and have 30 days to appeal. The other officers also maintain their innocence despite Mills Jr. surrendering his certification.
Most states have a process in place to keep officers who have a history of violating the law from going back to work. However, decertified officers can and do still get police jobs out of state. There is no federal decertification database, and while there is a privately run National Decertification Index, participation is voluntary.
Three other former officers investigated in the 29-year-old Black man’s death — Tadarrius Bean, Preston Hemphill and Dewayne Smith — will have decertification hearings at a later date. The two men have not been criminally charged.
