Cases of Memphis police officers charged with fatal beatings were reviewed
The Attorney General of Shelby County, Tennessee, will review the case files of the five former Memphis police officers charged in the fatal beating of Tire Nichols, CNN reports, citing a statement from its office.
Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy said in the statement his office will review “all previous cases — completed and pending” of the five fired officers charged with second-degree murder, assault and kidnapping in the death of Nichols, a 29- year-old black man, are charged. one-year-old father severely beaten by police after a traffic stop on January 7.
“This is just the beginning,” Mulroy’s rep, Erica Williams, told CNN.
“This applies to every criminal case in which (the officers) were involved.
“Certainly there have been criminal charges filed by prosecutors since they became officers.”
Prosecutors declined to elaborate on either Mulroy’s or Williams’ statements except to reiterate that the investigation is ongoing and additional charges may be in the case.
Videos released by the city two weeks ago showed Nichols screaming for his mother as the five officers, also black, beat him with kicks, punches and batons and doused him with pepper spray.
Footage ends with Nichols left handcuffed, bloodied and slumped against the side of a police vehicle for about 15 minutes before receiving medical attention.
Nichols died in a hospital three days later.
The footage prompted a nationwide outcry and protests in several major cities across the United States.
Civil rights activists and attorneys for the Nichols family have condemned the beating as the latest case of an African American man brutalized by a racially biased law enforcement system that disproportionately targets people of color, even when the officers involved are not white.
On Friday, the family publicly called on the United Nations to condemn the killing of Nichols, while calling for transparency with police and urging criminal charges against other officers involved in the incident, lawyers for the family said in a statement.
The statement, released by the office of Civil Rights Attorney Ben Crump, called for “urgent action regarding the torture and extrajudicial killing of Tyre Nichols, a person of African descent in Memphis, Tennessee.”
A similar appeal was made more than two years ago to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva by the brother of the late George Floyd, the black man whose death below the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 sparked global protests against racial injustice.
The five Memphis officers charged in Nichols’s murder were members of Scorpion, a now-defunct specialized police unit formed in October 2021 to focus on crime hotspots.
Critics say such specialized teams can be vulnerable to abusive tactics.
A sixth officer was dismissed from the police station, while seven other officers were awaiting formal disciplinary proceedings for their involvement.
