Following the firing and charging of five Memphis police officers for their role in the death of Tyre Nichols last month, a sixth officer involved has also been fired for violating multiple department policies. Internal police investigations are ongoing to determine further culpability in Nichols’ death, which has tragically resumed a national conversation about the relationships between police officers and the communities they work in.
Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was stopped by the Memphis police on the night of January 7, allegedly for “reckless driving” (there is no corroborating evidence of this). The officers pulled Nichols out of his car and struggled with him, shouting expletives and using pepper spray and a taser before Nichols broke away and ran. Five of the officers found Nichols half a mile away and beat and subdued him for several minutes before medics, other police officers, and an ambulance arrived.
Body camera and surveillance camera footage released by the Memphis Police Department show the five officers, all of whom are also Black, beating, punching, kicking, and pepper-spraying Nichols. After the ambulance arrived, Nichols was taken to a hospital, where he died just days later on January 10. On January 20 Memphis PD fired the five officers involved in the second incident and on January 24 they were arrested and charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression.
Now another police officer who was present at the traffic stop and who used the taser on Nichols has been fired as well, though he has not been charged with a crime. Police stated that the officer, who is white, broke rules regarding the use of a stun gun and made violations of personal conduct and truthfulness. The police officers are not the only ones who have faced consequences. The two medics who arrived on the scene after the second incident were suspended for failing to administer critical care to Nichols, who at that point appeared limp and unresponsive. No death certificate with an official cause of death for Nichols has been issued yet, but an autopsy commissioned by his family found that Nichols “suffered excessive bleeding caused by a severe beating.”
The five officers charged with Nichols’ murder were part of the “Scorpion” unit of the Memphis police, which targeted violent criminals in high-crime areas. Following the release of the videos of Nichols’ arrest and beating, the unit has been disbanded. The city has also ordered a review of its entire police department through the U.S. Department of Justice. Nationwide, conversations about police reform have been revived. President Biden has called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was initially drawn up after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer in May 2020. The act addresses police misconduct, excessive force, and racial bias and profiling.
Other politicians and citizens are pushing for a change in police culture. Katie Ryan, chief of staff for Campaign Zero, a group of academics and policing experts working to end police violence, says that “the culture of a police department has to shift into actually implementing the policies, not just saying there’s a rule in place.” More oversight of police departments and more transparency in cases of police violence could go always to shifting this culture. The swift consequences faced by the Memphis police officers involved in Nichols’ death may show police officers and the citizens they are supposed to protect that police departments are finally taking the concerns of activists and ordinary people seriously.
The investigations into Nichols’ death will continue, and the Memphis Police Department has so far been responsible in providing the public with information and plans for reform. Nichols will be remembered as a victim of a bizarre and brutal attack, but also as a father, a son, a photographer, a skateboarder, and, as his family says, a “beautiful soul.” Justice for him is hopefully on the horizon.
