Justice Department and the city of Memphis to address results of scathing police investigation

The fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by officers after he ran away from a traffic stop in January 2023 exposed serious problems in the Memphis Police Department, from the use of excessive force to its mistreatment of Black people in the majority-Black city, a federal investigation has found.

A report released Wednesday revealed the findings of a 17-month Department of Justice investigation into Memphis police that began after Nichols was kicked, punched and hit with a police baton. Members of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division plan to discuss the report during a Thursday morning news conference, followed by a rebuttal by the city of Memphis with its own press availability.

Nichols was Black, as are the former officers involved in his beating. His death led to national protests, raised the volume on calls for police reforms in the U.S., and directed intense scrutiny towards police in Memphis. The Memphis Police Department is more than 50 percent Black, and police chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis is also Black.

The federal probe looked at the department’s “pattern or practice” of how it uses force and conducts stops, searches and arrests, and whether it engages in discriminatory policing. The city said in a letter released before the report Wednesday that it would not agree to negotiate federal oversight of its police department until it could review and challenge results of the investigation.

The report said police officers would punch, kick and use other force against people who were already handcuffed or restrained, acts that the investigation described as unconstitutional but which were nearly always approved after the fact by supervisors. The investigation found that officers resort to force likely to cause pain or injury “almost immediately in response to low-level, nonviolent offenses, even when people are not aggressive.”

“Memphis police officers regularly violate the rights of the people they are sworn to serve,” said the report, which adds that "Black people in Memphis disproportionately experience these violations.“

“MPD has never assessed its practices for evidence of discrimination,” the report said. "We found that officers treat Black people more harshly than white people who engage in similar conduct.”

The report says Memphis police cite or arrest Black people for loitering or curfew violations at 13 times the rate it does for white people, and cite or arrest Black people for disorderly conduct at 3.6 times the rate of white people.

Police video showed officers pepper spraying Nichols and hitting him with a Taser before he ran away from a traffic stop. Five officers chased down Nichols just steps from his home as he called out for his mother. The video showed the officers milling about, talking and laughing as Nichols struggled with his injuries.

Nichols died on Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. The five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired, charged in state court with murder, and indicted by a federal grand jury on civil rights and witness tampering charges.

The report specifically mentions the Nichols case, and it addresses the police department’s practice of flooding neighborhoods with traffic stops.

“This strategy involves frequent contact with the public and gives wide discretion to officers, which requires close supervision and clear rules to direct officers’ activity,” the report said. “But MPD does not ensure that officers conduct themselves in a lawful manner.”

The report says officers pepper sprayed, kicked and fired a Taser at an unarmed man with a mental illness who tried to take a $2 soda from a gas station. By the end of an encounter outside the station, at least nine police cars and 12 officers had responded to the incident, for which the man served two days in jail for theft and disorderly conduct.

In other cases, officers hit a handcuffed man eight times with a baton in the face and torso, and pepper sprayed another handcuffed man inside the back seat of a squad car and left him inside with the doors closed, despite the man complaining that he could not breathe. DOJ said the department found no violations.

The investigation cited police training that “primed officers to believe that force was the most likely way to end an encounter,” rather than talking to a suspect to de-escalate a situation. In one training example, officers were told that “If a fight is unavoidable, hurt them first and hurt them bad.”

In a letter to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Memphis City Attorney Tannera George Gibson said the city had received a DOJ request to enter into a consent decree with federal oversight of the police department — but would not do so until it could review and challenge results of the investigation.

A consent decree is an agreement requiring reforms that are overseen by an independent monitor and are approved by a federal judge. The federal oversight can continue for years, and violations could result in fines paid by the city.

“Until the City has had the opportunity to review, analyze, and challenge the specific allegations that support your forthcoming findings report, the City cannot — and will not — agree to work toward or enter into a consent decree that will likely be in place for years to come and will cost the residents of Memphis hundreds of millions of dollars,” the letter said.

The officers in the Nichols case were part of a crime suppression team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded after Nichols’ death. The team targeted drugs, illegal guns and violent offenders, with the goal of amassing arrest numbers, while sometimes using force against unarmed people.

Memphis police never adopted policies and procedures to direct the unit, despite alarms that it was minimally supervised, the report said. Prosecutors told investigators that there were some “outrageous” inconsistences between body camera footage and arrest reports, and if the cases went to trial, they would be “laughed out of court.” The unit’s misconduct led to dozens of criminal cases being dismissed.

In court proceedings dealing with Nichols’ death, Martin and Mills pleaded guilty to the federal charges under deals with prosecutors. The other three officers were convicted in October of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating. Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges of using excessive force and being indifferent to Nichols’ serious injuries.

Haley was acquitted of violating Nichols’ civil rights causing death, but he was convicted of two lesser charges of violating his civil rights causing bodily injury. All five men face sentencing by a federal judge in the coming months.

Martin and Mills also are expected to change their not-guilty pleas in state court, according to lawyers involved in the case. Bean, Haley and Smith have pleaded not guilty to state charges of second-degree murder. A trial in the state case is set for April 28.

Justice Department investigators have targeted other cities with similar probes in recent years, including Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd, and Louisville, Kentucky, following an investigation prompted by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.

Pastor Earle Fisher, a Memphis community activist, said residents have long seen police engage in practices detailed in the report.

“We needed something like this to further validate the testimonies and narratives of the citizens,” Fisher said.

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Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee, and Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Kristin M. Hall contributed from Chicago.