Beating video cop team disbanded
Memphis chief: End of special unit ‘in the best interest of all’
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis police chief on Saturday disbanded the city’s so-called Scorpion unit after some of its officers beat to death Tyre Nichols, reversing an earlier statement that she would keep the unit intact.
Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she listened to Nichols’ relatives, community leaders and uninvolved officers in making the decision.
Referring to “the heinous actions of a few” that cast “a cloud of dishonor” on the unit, Davis said it was imperative that the department “take proactive steps in the healing process.”
“It is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit,” she said in a statement. She said the officers currently assigned to the unit “agree unreservedly” with the step.
The unit comprises three teams of about 30 officers who target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime. It had been inactive since Nichols’ Jan. 7 arrest.
Protesters marching in downtown Memphis cheered when they heard the unit had been dissolved.
In an interview Friday, Davis said she would not shut down a unit if a few officers commit “some egregious act” and because she needs that unit to continue to work.
The disbanding was announced as the nation and the city struggled to come to grips with video showing police pummeling the Black motorist.
The footage released Friday left many unanswered questions about the traffic stop involving Nichols and about other law enforcement officers who stood by as he lay motionless on the pavement.
The five disgraced former Memphis Police Department officers, who are also Black, have been fired and charged with murder and other crimes in Nichols’ death three days after the arrest.
The recording shows police savagely beating Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, for three minutes while screaming profanities at him. Nichols calls out for his mother before his limp body is propped against a squad car and the officers exchange fist-bumps.
The five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.
Davis has said other officers are under investigation, and Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said two deputies have been relieved of duty without pay while their conduct is investigated.
Rodney Wells, Nichols’ stepfather, said the family would “continue to seek justice” and noted that several other officers failed to render aid, making them “just as culpable as the officers who threw the blows.”
A Memphis police spokeswoman declined to comment on the role played by other officers who showed up at the scene.
Cities nationwide had braced for demonstrations, but protests were scattered and nonviolent.
Blake Ballin, the lawyer for Mills, said in a statement Saturday that the videos “produced as many questions as they have answers.”
Some of the questions will focus on what Mills “knew and what he was able to see” and whether his actions “crossed the lines that were crossed by other officers during this incident,” Ballin said.
Davis acknowledged that the police department has a supervisor shortage and said the lack of a supervisor in the arrest was a “major problem.”.
Questions swirled around what led to the traffic stop in the first place. One officer can be heard saying that Nichols wouldn’t stop and then swerved as though he intended to hit the officer’s car. The officer said that when Nichols pulled up to a red light, the officers jumped out of the car.
But Davis said the department cannot substantiate the reason for the stop.
“We don’t know what happened,” she said, adding, “All we know is the amount of force that was applied in this situation was over the top.”
On the video, officers can be seen holding Nichols down and repeatedly striking him with their fists, boots and batons as he screamed for his mother.
His mother’s home, where he lived, was only a few houses away from the scene of the beating, and his family said he was trying to get there.
The video is filled with violent moments showing the officers chasing Nichols and leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they fist-bump and celebrate their actions.
It takes more than 20 minutes after Nichols is beaten and on the pavement before any sort of medical attention is provided, even though two fire department officers arrived on the scene with medical equipment within 10 minutes.
Throughout the videos, officers make claims about Nichols’ behavior that are not supported by the footage or that the district attorney and other officials have said did not happen.
In one of the videos, an officer claims that during the initial traffic stop Nichols reached for the officer’s gun and almost had his hand on the handle, which is not shown in the video.
After Nichols is in handcuffs and leaning against a police car, several officers say he must have been high. Later an officer says no drugs were found in his car, and another immediately counters that Nichols must have ditched something while he was running away.
Authorities have not released an autopsy report, but they have said nothing of note was found in the car.