The Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against black people, according to the findings of a US Justice Department investigation. Tire Nichols dies due to beating After traffic stoppage in 2023.
A report released Wednesday marked the conclusion of an investigation that began six months after Nicholas was kicked, punched and hit with a police baton. as five officers An attempt was made to arrest him after he fled a traffic stop.
The report states that “Memphis police officers routinely violate the rights of the people they are sworn to serve.”
“The people of Memphis deserve a police department and city that protects their civil and constitutional rights, builds trust and keeps them safe,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said in an emailed statement. Is.”
Courtesy of the Nichols family via AP
The city said in a letter released earlier Wednesday that it would not agree to negotiate federal oversight of its police department until it can review and challenge the results of the investigation.
City officials had no immediate comment on the report, but they said they planned to hold a news conference Thursday after Justice Department officials held their own news conference in Memphis Thursday morning to address the findings. Making.
police video Officers were shown pepper-spraying Nichols and hitting him with a Taser before he fled the traffic stop. As he called out for his mother, five officers chased Nichols and kicked, punched and hit him with police batons just steps from his home. The video showed officers walking around, talking and laughing while Nicholas struggled with his injuries.
Nichols died on January 10, 2023, three days after the beating. Five officers – Tadarius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith – were fired, charged with murder in state court, and Indicted by federal grand jury On allegations of civil rights and witness tampering.
Like the former officers, Nichols was also black. His death led to national protests, intensified calls for police reforms in the US, and prompted a thorough investigation of the police department in the predominantly black city of Memphis.
The report specifically mentions the Nichols case, and it addresses the police department's practice of using traffic stops to address violent crime. The report said the police department has encouraged officers in special units, task forces and patrols to prioritize street enforcement and that officers and community members have described this approach as “saturation” or flooding the neighborhood with traffic stops. As described.
“This strategy involves frequent contact with the public and gives officers wide discretion, requiring close supervision and clear rules to guide officers' activity,” the report said. “But MPD does not ensure that officers conduct themselves lawfully.”
The report said prosecutors and judges told federal investigators that the officers did not understand the constitutional limits on their authority. The report said officers stop and detain people without sufficient justification, and they conduct aggressive searches of people and cars.
“Black people in Memphis disproportionately experience these violations,” the report said. “MPD has never evaluated its practices for evidence of discrimination. We found that officers treated black people more harshly than white people who engaged in similar conduct.”
The investigation found that Memphis officers “almost immediately resort to force to cause pain or injury in response to low-level, non-violent crimes, even when people are not aggressive.”
The report says officers pepper sprayed, kicked and fired a Taser at an unarmed mentally ill man who tried to grab a $2 soda from a gas station. By the end of the encounter outside the gas station, at least nine police cars and 12 officers had responded to the incident, which landed the man two days in jail for theft and disorderly conduct.
In a letter released earlier Wednesday to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Memphis City Attorney Tanera George Gibson said the city had received a request from the DOJ to enter into an agreement requiring it to enter into “a consent decree aimed at deinstitutionalizing police Will need to communicate with “emergency services.”
A consent decree is an agreement that requires reforms to be overseen by an independent monitor and approved by a federal judge. Federal inspections can continue for years, and violations can result in fines for the city.
It remains to be seen what will happen to efforts to reach such agreements between cities and the Justice Department after President-elect Donald Trump returns to office and installs new department leadership. The Justice Department previously reduced its use of consent decrees under the Trump administration, and the Republican president-elect is expected to again fundamentally reshape the department's priorities around civil rights.
“The City cannot agree to enter into or work toward a Consent Decree until the City has had an opportunity to review, analyze, and challenge the specific allegations supporting your upcoming findings report — and will not — that will likely be implemented will cost Memphis residents millions of dollars in losses for years to come,” the letter says.
The officers in the Nicholls case were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded after Nicholls' death. The team targeted drugs, illegal guns and violent criminals with the goal of increasing arrest numbers, while sometimes using force against unarmed people.
According to the Justice Department report, Memphis police never adopted policies and procedures to direct the unit, despite it having minimal oversight. Some prosecutors told department investigators that there were some “outrageous” discrepancies between body camera footage and arrest reports, and that if the cases went to trial, they would be “laughed out of court.” The report found that dozens of criminal cases were dismissed because of the unit's misconduct.
In court proceedings related to Nichols' death, Martin and Mills pleaded guilty to federal charges as part of agreements with prosecutors. The other three officers were convicted in early October of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating. Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges of excessive force and indifference to Nichols' serious injuries.
Haley was acquitted of the charge of causing death due to a violation of Nicholas's civil rights, but was convicted of two lesser charges of causing bodily injury due to a violation of his civil rights. The five men will be sentenced by a federal judge in the coming months.
Martin and Mills are also expected to change their not guilty pleas in state court, according to attorneys involved in the case. Bean, Haley and Smith have also pleaded not guilty to state charges of second-degree murder. A hearing in the state case has been scheduled for April 28.
Justice Department investigators have targeted other cities with similar probes in recent years, including Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd and Louisville, Kentucky, after an investigation prompted by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.
In its letter, the city of Memphis said the DOJ's investigation “took only 17 months to complete, whereas almost every other case takes an average of 2-3 years, meaning a rushed decision.”