Ex-cop’s arrest stuns former Conn. teammates
BLOOMFIELD — When Desmond Mills was in high school, he told one of his teammates about his dream to become a police officer.
“He wanted to make a change for our community, our Black community, a positive change,” said Jaizz Nealy, who knew Mills since elementary school.
Mills, who graduated in 2008 from Bloomfield High School where he played football, is among five former Memphis police officers charged with killing Tyre Nichols. The five Black men were charged with murder as well as aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
Nichols, a Black man, died three days after the Jan. 7 traffic stop from injuries sustained in the “use-of-force incident with officers,” according to a statement from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Ben Crump, a well-known civil rights attorney representing Nichols’ family, described the beating as “savage.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Crump said Nichols was hit with a stun gun and pepper-sprayed and then restrained after being pulled over. Crump said Nichols was beaten for three minutes after the traffic stop.
Crump and other attorneys for the family said Nichols was beaten while he was restrained, comparing the scene to an MMA fight and to the 1991 beating of Rodney
King by Los Angeles police.
Marcus Johnson, who also played high school football with Mills, was shocked when he heard his former teammate was involved in the deadly beating.
“It’s so weird,” Johnson said. “He was not that kind of guy.”
Known as “Lunchbox” and described by former teammates as a “beast,” Mills was a defensive lineman and center on Bloomfield’s football team, according to a roster from MaxPreps.com.
Tyler Baisden said his former teammate got his nickname because he was big and strong and carried a distinctive lunchbox.
Mills, who also played the saxophone in school, served as captain of the football
team for one season. Players like Corey Newton, who was two years younger than him, said he looked up to Mills as a “team leader.” Others described Mills as someone who played by the rules.
“He was somebody who stuck to the script, stuck to the rules. He was a hard-nosed kind of guy,” former teammate
Bryant Daniels said.
Stan Simpson, a spokesperson for Bloomfield Public Schools confirmed Mills graduated in 2008, but declined to comment further.
A spokesperson for the town of Bloomfield also declined to comment, but said the community is “obviously outraged.”
In addition to Bloomfield ties, public records show Johnson also lived on Magnolia Street in Hartford.