Tyre Nichols should be alive. Tyre Nichols’ 7-year-old son should still have his father.
The Memphis officers convicted Thursday for their roles in his fatal beating – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith – lied to a supervisor, to medical professionals treating Nichols, and in subsequent written reports about the extent of the force they used during the early January 2023 encounter.
Police video from the brutal attack showed the officers pepper-spraying and punching and kicking Nichols. When he tried to escape his attackers, they tasered him. The footage captured Nichols calling out for his mother as the officers pummeled the 29-year-old with police batons mere steps from his home. All video evidence clearly shows that Nichols was restrained during the attack and unable to comply with instructions.
Bean, Haley, and Smith now face as many as 20 years in prison after being convicted Thursday of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating. Yet all three were acquitted of the more serious civil rights charges underpinning the investigation. Only Haley was convicted of the lesser charge of violating Nichols’ civil rights, causing bodily injury, as well as conspiracy to witness tampering.
The defense attorney for the officers argued, without evidence, that Nichols was on drugs, and two other officers pleaded guilty and testified that the beating and subsequent cover-up were part of the unit’s culture. The defense’s attempt to normalize police brutality and criminal cover-ups is appalling.
CPE’s own research confirms prior findings that Black drivers are subjected to higher rates of non-safety stops and discretionary searches than White drivers and are more likely to experience use of force. Taken together, these results suggest that officers’ decisions to stop Black drivers for non-safety reasons – and to conduct discretionary searches during those stops – combine to exacerbate Black drivers’ exposure to police use of force.
The fight for justice is not over. CPE calls for true accountability in the murder of Tyre Nichols through a conviction on all charges.