Last week, the Police Department stated the 5 officers had been fired after a “thorough review of the circumstances surrounding this incident,” which discovered that they’d violated division insurance policies on extreme use of drive, responsibility to intervene and responsibility to render support. The Memphis Police Association, the union representing officers, has declined to touch upon the accusations.
The officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — all joined the division between 2017 and 2020. Other officers are additionally being investigated for coverage violations, and Chief Davis stated that she has ordered a evaluation of specialised teams just like the Scorpion Unit.
The Memphis Fire Department has stated that two of its staff who responded to the scene have additionally been “relieved of duty” whereas it conducts its personal inner investigation.
Some of the primary descriptions of what was recorded on the scene had been shared on Monday by Mr. Nichols’s household and their legal professionals after they had been proven the video in non-public.
“‘What did I do?’ — that was his question,” Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer who’s representing the household, stated of Mr. Nichols within the news convention. “‘What did I do?’”
Antonio Romanucci, one other lawyer for Mr. Nichols’s household, stated that Mr. Nichols was overwhelmed by officers for three minutes. The video, he stated, confirmed Mr. Nichols being pepper sprayed, shocked with a stun gun and restrained.
Mr. Nichols instructed the officers that he simply wished to go residence, the legal professionals stated.
Mr. Nichols’s household is pushing for the officers to be charged with first-degree homicide. “Anything short of that we will not accept,” Rodney Wells, Mr. Nichols’s stepfather, stated at a news convention on Monday after watching the footage, which he described as “horrific.”