MEMPHIS — A police report written hours after officers beat Tyre Nichols was starkly at odds with what movies have since revealed, making no point out of the highly effective kicks and punches unleashed on Mr. Nichols and as an alternative claiming that he was violent.
The police report painted Mr. Nichols, 29, who died three days after the Jan. 7 beating, as an irate suspect who had “started to fight” with Memphis law enforcement officials, even reaching for certainly one of their weapons. The movies, which have been launched final week, confirmed nothing of the type.
Instead, they captured law enforcement officials yanking Mr. Nichols from a automotive, threatening to harm him after which — after he ran away — catching up with him and inflicting the lethal beating. All the whereas, it seems from the movies, Mr. Nichols by no means struck again.
On Monday, the fallout from Mr. Nichols’s dying continued. The Police Department introduced that it had suspended two extra officers, along with the 5 who’ve already been fired and charged with homicide within the beating.
Meanwhile, the town’s hearth chief, Gina Sweat, fired two emergency medical technicians and a lieutenant who had responded to the scene, saying that all of them had violated a spread of insurance policies.
The hearth chief mentioned that the E.M.T.s had been responding to a report of an individual who had been pepper sprayed and that that they had relied on information given to them on the scene, presumably by among the law enforcement officials who had simply kicked, punched and used a baton to pummel Mr. Nichols, a FedEx employee and father who had pleaded with the officers to cease.
The official account written by a police officer early the following morning instructed a a lot totally different story wherein Mr. Nichols was the assailant.
It was the newest occasion nationwide wherein video proof — whether or not from physique digital camera footage or a bystander’s cellphone — supplied a starkly totally different account of police violence from what officers had reported themselves.
In Minneapolis, for instance, the police mentioned in May 2020 that George Floyd had died following a “medical incident,” an outline that was quickly challenged by a teenager’s cellphone video, resulting in worldwide protests and prices in opposition to 4 officers.
More on the Death of Tyre Nichols
In Mr. Nichols’s arrest, the officer wrote that the police stopped Mr. Nichols’s automotive on Jan. 7 after seeing him drive shortly and into oncoming site visitors, and that, as soon as he was stopped, Mr. Nichols had been “refusing a lawful detention” and fought detectives on the scene.
Cerelyn Davis, the Memphis police chief, has mentioned investigators have been unable to find out whether or not Mr. Nichols was driving recklessly. And the movies present that officers had approached his automotive with their weapons drawn, whereas threatening and cursing at him, earlier than pulling him out and pushing him to the bottom.
Mr. Nichols, sounding distressed, says “You don’t do that, OK?” after which tries to observe officers’ contradictory and rapid fire commands, which included ordering him to get on the bottom whereas he was already mendacity down. “All right, I’m on the ground,” he says, earlier than responding to a different demand: “Yes, sir.”
But the police continued to be aggressive, with one threatening to fireplace his Taser at Mr. Nichols and one other threatening to “break” his palms. Mr. Nichols pleaded with them to cease, and mentioned at one level, “You guys are really doing a lot right now.”
The police report mentioned that, someday round this era, Mr. Nichols had grabbed for a detective’s gun, one thing not proven in any of the movies. The officers then deployed pepper spray into Mr. Nichols’s face, after which he ran away, towards his mom’s home.
{A photograph} of the police report was first posted on-line over the weekend by Thaddeus Matthews, a talk-show host in Memphis who is named The Cussing Pastor and who mentioned he obtained it from a supply. The native district lawyer, Steven J. Mulroy, who’s main the prosecution of the officers, mentioned on Monday that he had a duplicate of a police report with the identical account.
Both the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and the Memphis Police Department are listed on the {photograph} of the report printed by Mr. Matthews, which incorporates solely the final title of the officer who wrote it, making it unclear which company was answerable for its content material. Neither would talk about the doc.
When officers caught up with Mr. Nichols a number of minutes after he fled, they tackled him and severely beat him, with one officer delivering a sequence of blows to Mr. Nichols’s head whereas two different officers maintain his palms behind his again.
The police report does point out that the police had struck Mr. Nichols within the arm with a baton and that that they had fired pepper spray and a Taser at Mr. Nichols, however it contains no additional particulars of the beating that the officers carried out, which came about lower than 100 yards from his mom’s home.
Despite the truth that Mr. Nichols doesn’t seem to strike again, the report lists Mr. Nichols because the suspect in an aggravated assault and mentioned he had grabbed officers’ belts and one officer’s vest. A Memphis police officer is listed on the report as a sufferer. That police officer is certainly one of 5 who’ve since been charged with second-degree homicide in Mr. Nichols’s dying.
Only one of many two law enforcement officials whose suspensions have been introduced on Monday has been recognized. That officer, Preston Hemphill, had fired his Taser at Mr. Nichols as he ran away, and who additionally later mentioned, whereas his physique digital camera was rolling, “I hope they stomp his ass.” He was not seen on video from the second location, the place the police carried out the assault on Mr. Nichols.
All 5 of the charged officers are Black, as was Mr. Nichols. Officer Hemphill is white.
The district lawyer’s workplace mentioned in an announcement on Monday that prosecutors have been nonetheless inspecting whether or not to convey extra prices, together with in opposition to Officer Hemphill, the Fire Department workers and officers who wrote stories on the episode.
Chief Sweat mentioned on Monday that the 2 E.M.T.s whom she fired had “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment” on Mr. Nichols after arriving on the scene. The lieutenant who was fired by no means acquired out of the hearth engine, the chief mentioned.
A day earlier, The Times had reported that the E.M.T.s had largely looked on as Mr. Nichols writhed in pain and, at one level, had not touched him or offered any take care of almost seven minutes.
Videos from the scene confirmed that because the medics have been arriving, the law enforcement officials who had battered Mr. Nichols have been laughing in regards to the episode and describing it intimately, with one saying he had hit Mr. Nichols with “haymakers.” It is unclear whether or not the medics overheard this or how a lot the officers instructed them in regards to the accidents that they had inflicted.
They have been additionally insisting that Mr. Nichols have to be on medicine, one thing for which no proof has emerged. And when one other officer arrived on the scene, they described occasions that, in the event that they occurred, weren’t proven on the footage, claiming that Mr. Nichols “swung” at one officer and “literally had his hand” on that officer’s gun.
The police report will not be the one official narrative of the beating that has been challenged by the movies.
The Police Department’s first public statement, issued hours after the arrest, described every of the 2 encounters solely as “confrontations” and omitted particulars of the beating. “Afterward, the suspect complained of having a shortness of breath,” it mentioned, noting that state investigators had been referred to as in.
The messaging modified after Mr. Nichols died, residents protested and his household pressed the authorities for solutions. Chief Davis has since condemned the actions of the indicted officers as “a failing of basic humanity.”
Those officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — have every been charged with the identical seven felonies, which, along with the second-degree homicide cost, embody kidnapping, official misconduct and aggravated assault.
