Five former Memphis police officers were indicted Thursday on murder charges in the death of Tire Nichols, whose beating after a traffic stop was caught on video that left a top Tennessee law enforcement officer “sick.”
The Agents – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired after police chief CJ Davis said they violated department policy during the January 7 attack that led to Nichols’ death.
Martin, Smith and Bean were charged with manslaughter, three counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of acting together to commit aggravated assault, according to Shelby County Jail records.
Mills and Haley were charged with first-degree murder, two counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of official suppression, and one count of acting together to commit aggravated assault.
“The actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tire Nichols and they are all responsible,” Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters.
Manslaughter, the most serious charge, “is intentional murder,” the prosecutor said.
According to officials, video of the meeting with Nichols will be released after 6 p.m. local time on Friday.
More coverage of Tire Nichols’ death
Haley and Martin were held in lieu of $350,000 bail, while Bean, Mills and Smith must pay $250,000 to get out of custody, prison records showed.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation led the investigation, and bureau director David Rausch said the video will be clear.
“Simply put: this should not have happened,” he said. “I’ve been in the police force for over 30 years, I’ve devoted my life to this profession and I’m sad. Frankly, I’m shocked. I’m sick of what I saw.”
Rausch added: “Let me be clear: what happened here does not reflect good police behavior at all. This was wrong. This was criminal.”
The charges were welcomed by the victim’s family.
Charges against the officers “give us hope as we continue to push for justice for Tire,” said a statement from Nichols family attorneys Benjamin Crump and Antonio Romanucci.
“This young man lost his life in a particularly disgusting way that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure that this violence stops during low-threat procedures, such as a traffic check in this case,” they said.
“This tragedy meets the absolute definition of an unnecessary and unnecessary death.”
Early findings in an autopsy show Nichols was severely beaten before he died, lawyers said earlier this week.
The Nicholas, age 29 died on January 10, days after the confrontation with police which landed him in the hospital.
Nichols had been pulled over in the Hickory Hill neighborhood of Memphis for allegedly reckless driving, officials said.
After an “initial altercation” when “pepper spray was deployed,” the motorist ran away, Mulroy told reporters Thursday.
“There was another altercation at a nearby location where Mr. Nichols suffered serious injuries,” Mulroy continued. “After waiting for some time after that, he was taken away by an ambulance.”
Mulroy declined to elaborate on the deadly confrontation.
A photo of his stepfather showed a hospitalized Nichols with blood on his face and what appeared to be a swollen eye.
Nichols’ family and their lawyers, Crump and Romanucci, have reviewed CCTV footage of the meeting.
Romanucci described it as a “plain, unabashed, non-stop thrashing” for three minutes, and said Nichols was reportedly treated like a “human piñata” by the officers.
Crump compared the footage to “the Rodney King video,” referring to the 1991 bystander video of Los Angeles police officers beating up a black man.
In a video statement On Wednesday, Davis called the incident “heinous, reckless and inhumane” — behavior she said people can see for themselves when video of the stop is released. She said the officers “appeared to be directly responsible for Mr. Nichols’ physical assault.”
Representatives from the Memphis Police Association, which represents regular officers, were not immediately available for comment Thursday.
When the footage is made public, NAACP President Derrick Johnson said he hopes it will prompt lawmakers to take decisive action to reform the police force.
“Tell us what you will be doing to honor Tire Nichols,” Johnson said in a statement Thursday. “Tell us what you will do to show his family, his loving son, and this entire nation that his life was not in vain. We can name all the victims of police brutality, but we cannot name them. some law you passed to deal with it.
In a statement, Rev. Al Sharpton, who is also an MSNBC host, said the police video was designed to ensure officers follow the law.
“There’s no point putting a body cam on a cop if you can’t hold them accountable when the footage shows them brutally beating a man to death,” Sharpton said.
“Firing is not enough. Charges and arrests are not convictions. As we have done in the past – with George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others – we will stand by this family until justice is served. A conviction sends a message to the nation that the police cannot hide behind their badge after committing a horrific act like this.”
This is an evolving story. Check back later for updates.