The city of Memphis released another one thousand documents in connection to the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols last year.
After Nichols was chased down and brutally battered by a group of Memphis Police Department neighborhood crime officers last January, five of the officers — Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr., Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean — were hit with criminal charges. Their attorneys previously requested for the judge to keep these documents sealed, court documents show.
After scanning these documents, there’s no wonder they wanted this hidden from the public. Check out these five biggest takeaways from the city’s latest release.
1. Cops Trying to Cover Up?
It was already suspected by the public that the officers involved in the beating made attempts to cover up the incident. However, newly released documents from the MPD’s internal investigation show some major discrepancies between what the police claimed and what actually happened.
Lt. Dewayne Smith told investigators Nichols was resisting arrest, fighting the officers and tried to grab an officer’s gun. However, the report noted that former officer Preston Hemphill’s body cam showed Nichols complying with the commands. Hemphill was also heard speculating whether Nichols was hiding drugs inside his vehicle, echoing the sidebar remarks from the officers joking on body cam about Nichols being doped up on drugs, though none were recovered.
On justifying their use of force, documents show the officers submitted a “response to resistance” form alleging they tried to use less aggressive tactics to subdue Nichols, which directly contradicts the body cam video of him being punched, kicked and beaten with a baton.
The reason for the beatdown? To “protect others,” the form reads.
2. A Slew of Reprimands
It turns out the officers were reprimanded behind the scenes and only now do we know what for.
The internal investigation documents revealed that more officers beyond the ones fired from the department were written up for violating department polices relating to body cameras being turned off or not worn at the time of the incident. Also, response-to-resistance forms weren’t properly filled out.
There were also reprimands for behavior from incidents before Nichols’ death. One document showed former cop Demetrius Haley was reprimanded for leaking confidential information to inmates while working as a Shelby County jail corrections officer, calling out sick without documentation and manhandling a female inmate.
3. Shocking Witness Statements
One civilian who saw the aftermath of the beating was interviewed by authorities and gave the disturbing account of seeing Nichols bloodied and battered on the ground.
“I said, ‘Oh my god, they just raised his arm and it fell.’ That’s when I’m like man, something’s wrong with dude. And it just bothered me that everybody was standing out in the street. Had no care in the world that this guy was laying here and couldn’t, I never heard the guy say a word. I never did,” reads the witness statement.
4. Testimonies from the EMT’s
JaMichael Sandridge, one of the former EMT who responded to the scene, argued against his firing, saying department policy requires him to administer first aid based on the extent of the person’s injuries or ailments, per transcripts of his hearing. However, Sandridge told investigators thatby the time he arrived to Nichols, the damage had already been done.
“From what we gathered on scene, there was nothing I could have done that would have prevented that patient’s death,” he said. The day of that hearing, Sandridge was fired.
Pvt. Robert Long, who was cross-examined for his actions that fateful evening, was also fired. According to the transcripts from his hearing, Long was accused of abandoning Nichols while on active duty. In the document, Long’s excuse was that he went to find more information on Nichols because the only thing he could gather from the officers is that Nichols was a runaway suspect.
5. Scathing Email Correspondences
Following the news of Nichols’ death, a few city residents voiced complaints about the incident to the MPD via emails which were released in the set of documents. The citizens slammed the officers involved as “murderers” and “punks.”
“Protect and serve has become beat and kill. Five on one, really thug cops, the young man is dead forever, the mother and father are without their son, who’s next my son? Better stay out of Memphis will spend tourist money elsewhere,” reads one email.
The release of these documents comes after the city released an additional set of body camera and dash camera footage. The officers are expected to begin trial on state charges in August and then another trial on federal charges in September.