Nearly three weeks after a traffic stop in Memphis led to a violent arrest and the death of the driver, police are planning to show the public footage from their body cameras.
Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was arrested on January 7 and taken to the hospital. Three days later, on January 10, he died from his injuries. Five Black police officers from the Memphis Police Department were fired after an internal investigation, and they could be charged with a crime.
Nichols’s family and lawyers have met with police and city officials to watch the video recordings of the traffic stop. The beating of Nichols, which lasted for minutes after officers chased him down as he ran away, has been described as brutal and long-lasting.
Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis criticised the officers’ actions and said that more officers are still being looked into. Davis said, “This is not just a mistake on the job.” “This is a basic lack of kindness toward another person. This was a horrible, thoughtless, and cruel thing to do. In the spirit of being honest, you will be able to see this for yourselves when the video comes out in the next few days.”
Here’s what we know about what happened, how the police are looking into it, and how Nichols’ family feels about it:
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January 7: A Traffic Stop That Ends in Death
A Memphis police statement says that at about 8:30 p.m. on January 7, officers stopped a car they thought was being driven carelessly. Memphis police say that there was a fight between officers and the driver of the car, who was later identified as Nichols. Nichols then ran away on foot. Officers caught him, and then “another fight broke out,” which led to Nichols’ arrest, police said.
Police said that Nichols asked for an ambulance at the scene of his arrest because he was having trouble breathing. He was taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition. Three days after the stop, on January 10, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that Nichols had died from injuries he got in the “use of force incident with officers.”
January 15: Police Give New Information About the Investigation
Memphis police said that after the traffic stop, the officers involved were taken off duty. This is a standard procedure for the department while an investigation into their use of force gets started. The TBI and the office of the district attorney in Shelby County were also asked to look into what happened. Police said that preliminary findings showed that the officers’ actions during the stop were very bad.
In a statement released on January 15, Chief Davis said, “After looking at different sources of information about this incident, I’ve decided that immediate and appropriate action is needed.” “Today, the department is letting the officers involved know about the administrative actions that are coming up.”
The statement also said that the department had to follow a required procedure before punishing or firing a government civil servant. In the days after Nichols died, his family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, said over and over again that they wanted the body camera footage and surveillance footage from the traffic stop to be made public.
Crump said in a statement, “This kind of death in custody destroys community trust if agencies don’t act quickly to be open and honest.”
January 18: The Federal Government Opens an Investigation
The Department of Justice said on January 18 that a civil rights investigation has been started into Nichols’s death. US Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee Kevin G. Ritz said in a statement, “Tyre Nichols died tragically last week, just a few days after he was involved in an incident in which Memphis Police Department officers used force to arrest him.”
Ritz said that the US Attorney’s office has started a civil rights investigation “in coordination with the FBI Memphis Field Office and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.” He did not give any more details.
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January 20: Officers Are Identified and Fired
After an internal investigation, Memphis police found five officers who were involved in the traffic stop and fired them because they had broken several department rules. The department said in a statement that Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr., and Justin Smith were fired for “excessive use of force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid.”
Davis said, “The seriousness of this incident is not a reflection of the good work our officers do every day with honesty.” The Memphis Police Association, which is the officers’ union, said in a statement that it would not comment on the firings. Instead, it said that the city of Memphis and Nichols’ family “deserve to know the full story of what happened before his death and what may have contributed to it.”
The firing of the five officers was called “the first step toward getting justice for Tyre and his family” by lawyers for the Nichols family, Crump and Antonio Romanucci. Two Memphis Fire Department employees who helped Nichols with “initial patient care” were also fired, according to Qwanesha Ward, the department’s Public Information Officer.
January 23: Police Video is Shown to the Family
Nichols’ family and lawyers talked to officials about how horrified they were by what they saw on the unreleased police video of the arrest. “He had no way to defend himself. Those police officers used him as a human piata. This boy was beaten for three minutes straight, without any excuses, and without stopping. “That’s what we saw in that video,” Romanucci said. “It was not only violent, but also cruel.”
Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, said Monday, “What I saw on the video today was terrible.” “No parent should have to see what I saw today,” I said.
Crump used words like “appalling,” “deplorable,” and “heinous” to describe the video. He said that Nichols’ mother, Ravaughn Wells, couldn’t watch more than the first minute of the video because Nichols asked, “What did I do?” The lawyer said that at the end of the video, Nichols can be heard calling for his mother three times.
According to the preliminary results of an autopsy that his family’s lawyers paid for, Nichols had “extensive bleeding” because he had been hit hard. CNN has asked for a copy of the autopsy, and Crump said that it will be ready when the full report is.
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office hasn’t said yet if anyone will be charged in the case. District Attorney Steve Mulroy told CNN on Tuesday that his office is making sure everyone involved has been interviewed before the video is made public.
Mulroy said, “A lot of people’s questions about what happened will be answered once they see the video.” He added that he thinks the city will release enough footage to show “the whole thing, from the beginning to the end.”
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