Tyre Nichols death: Multiple former Memphis polilce officers to be charged with murder, court records show

CNN
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[Breaking news update, published at 1:22 p.m. ET]

According to Shelby County Criminal Court records, several former Memphis police officers face second-degree murder charges in the murder of Tire Nichols.

[Original story, published at 12:40 p.m. ET]

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy will provide an update on the investigation into the Memphis Police Department’s arrest of Tire Nichols and his subsequent death at 2 p.m. CT Thursday, which will include an announcement of criminal charges, a source said close to CNN’s investigation Don with Lemon.

The source also said authorities expect to release police video of the stop on Friday.

One of the five officers fired after Nichols’ death has been charged and has surrendered, attorney William Massey said. Massey is representing former officer Emmitt Martin III. The attorney said he did not yet know the nature of the charges.

Live updates on the Tire Nichols case

The expected criminal complaint announcement comes about three weeks after Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, was hospitalized following a traffic stop and a “confrontation” with Memphis police, which family attorneys have described as a brutal beating.

Nichols died of his injuries on January 10, three days after the arrest. the authorities said.

The five Memphis police officers, who are also black, were fired for violating policies on the excessive use of force, the duty to intervene and the duty to render assistance, the department said. Other Memphis police officers are still under investigation for violations of department policies related to the incident, the chief said.

Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis condemned the arresting officers’ actions as a “failure of basic humanity” and called for peaceful protests ahead of the release of video of the arrest.

“This isn’t just a professional failure. This is a failure of basic humanity towards another person,” Davis said Wednesday in a YouTube video, her first on-camera comment about the arrest. “This incident was heinous, inconsiderate and inhumane and in the spirit of transparency you will see this for yourself when the video is released in the coming days.”

Prosecutors have announced that a decision on whether to bring charges is forthcoming. A lawyer representing one of the officers will hold a news conference following the district attorney’s update on Thursday.

Authorities have not released video of the arrest, but Nichols’ family and lawyers were shown the video Monday. They said the footage showed officers severely beating Nichols and compared it to the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King in 1991.

Nichols had “extensive bleeding caused by severe beatings,” the attorneys said, citing preliminary results from an autopsy they ordered.

Nichols’ arrest and subsequent death comes amid heightened scrutiny of police treatment of black people, particularly since the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the mass protest movement known as Black Lives Matter.

Davis, the first black woman to serve as Memphis Police Chief, said she expects the video’s release to provoke public reactions in the coming days and urged citizens to be nonviolent in the face of “our outrage and frustration.”

“I expect our citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to protest to demand action and results. But we have to make sure our community is safe in this process,” Davis said. “None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction in our community or against our citizens.”

Law enforcement agencies across the country are preparing for protests and possible riots following the video’s release, multiple sources told CNN. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, one of the leading professional law enforcement organizations, has convened several calls with member agencies, according to the group’s executive director, Laura Cooper.

A law enforcement source familiar with national coordination told CNN that on at least one of those calls, the Memphis police urged participants to be on the alert for riots. The source added that there had been an additional call between law enforcement agencies in Washington, DC to coordinate responses and share information.

Nichols, the father of a 4-year-old, had worked with his stepfather at FedEx for about nine months, his family said. He loved skateboarding at Shelby Farms Park, visiting Starbucks with friends, and photographing sunsets, and he got his mother’s name tattooed on his arm, the family said. He also had the digestive problem known as Crohn’s disease and was slim at just 140 to 145 pounds despite his 6ft 3in height, his mother said.

On Jan. 7, he was pulled over by Memphis officers on suspicion of reckless driving, police said in their first statement into the incident. As officers approached the vehicle, a “confrontation” ensued and Nichols fled on foot, police said. Officers gave chase and they had another “confrontation” before he was taken into custody, police said.

Nichols then complained of shortness of breath, was taken to a local hospital in critical condition and died three days later, police said.

In the tone of the Memphis police scanner, one person says “a black male ran” and yelled to “set up a perimeter.” Another message reads, “He is fighting at this time.”

Lawyers for the Nichols family, who viewed video of the arrest Monday, described it as a heinous police beating that lasted three long minutes. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said Nichols was stabbed, pepper sprayed and restrained, and family attorney Antonio Romanucci said he was kicked.

“He was defenseless the whole time. He was a human pinata to those cops. It was a pure, unflinching, non-stop pounding of this boy for three minutes. We saw that in this video,” Romanucci said. “It wasn’t just violent, it was wild.”

The five officers who were fired were identified by police as Martin, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith. All came to the department within the past six years, police said.

In addition, two members of the city fire department who were part of Nichols’ “first responder” have been relieved of duty, a fire department spokesman said. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced one detection into the death of Nichols and the US Department of Justice and the FBI have opened a civil rights investigation.

Video of the incident could be released this week or next, Mulroy told CNN’s Laura Coates on Tuesday night, but he wants to make sure his office has interviewed everyone involved before releasing the video so it doesn’t affect what they say.

Prosecutors are trying to expedite the investigation and may be able to make a decision on possible charges “around the same timeframe that we are considering releasing the video,” Mulroy said.

Nichols’ family wants the officers charged with the murder, Romanucci told CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday night.