The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

What we know, and what we still don't know, about what led to the death of Tire Nichols

2023-01-28T15:10:12.548Z


Tire Nichols was hospitalized after being taken into custody on January 7, police said. Charges filed against 5 ex-cops in death of Tire Nichols in Memphis 2:24 (CNN) -- It's been nearly three weeks since a traffic stop in Memphis led to the violent arrest and, three days later, the death of a 29-year-old black driver. Tire Nichols died after being pulled over by police in Memphis. He had 'extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating', according to preliminary autopsy Tire Nichol


Charges filed against 5 ex-cops in death of Tire Nichols in Memphis 2:24

(CNN) --

It's been nearly three weeks since a traffic stop in Memphis led to the violent arrest and, three days later, the death of a 29-year-old black driver.

  • Tire Nichols died after being pulled over by police in Memphis.

    He had 'extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating', according to preliminary autopsy

Tire Nichols was hospitalized after he was taken into custody on January 7, police said.

Five Memphis Police Department officers, who are also black, were fired after an internal investigation and face criminal charges, including manslaughter charges.

Tire Nichols.

(Provided by Ben Crump)

Key questions remain unanswered as the nation, which is closely watching how police treat people of color, especially after the 2020 mass protests, waits for authorities to release footage of the incident.

This is what we know:

The 'confrontation' with the police

On January 7, around 8:30 p.m., Memphis officers pulled over a vehicle on suspicion of reckless driving, according to a Memphis police statement.

"A confrontation ensued" between officers and the driver of the vehicle, later identified as Nichols, who then fled on foot, according to Memphis police.

Officers pulled him over and "another confrontation occurred," resulting in Nichols' arrest, police said.

advertising

The incident happened just a few blocks from her home, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "CJ" Davis told CNN's Don Lemon on Friday.

“We've looked at the cameras, we've looked at the body cameras, even if something happened before this stop, we haven't been able to corroborate it at this time,” Davis said.

"We've done quite a bit of looking at what happened to determine what the probable cause was and we haven't been able to corroborate that," he said.

"It doesn't mean that something didn't happen, but there is no proof."

It's also unclear who was involved in the initial encounter with police, how officers stopped him, how long these "encounters" lasted, why officers felt compelled to confront Nichols twice, and where exactly this occurred.

Beyond the police body camera footage, police looked at surveillance cameras from businesses around the city, anything that could help paint a picture of what happened before the traffic stop, Davis said. .

After officers pull over Nichols' car, there is a physical interaction involving Nichols as officers attempt to remove him from the car, but it remains unknown what the original reason for the stop was, the chief said.

From the start of the encounter, the chief said, the officers involved were irritated.

“The escalation was already at a high level,” Davis said.

The nature of the traffic stop was very aggressive with noisy communication and it escalated from there, he said.

During the initial altercation involving multiple officers, pepper spray was deployed and Nichols ran, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said at a news conference Thursday.

Nichols escaped, but officers "found him again at another location and at that time there was an amount of assault that is inexplicable," she said.

“There was another altercation at a nearby location in which Mr. Nichols sustained serious injuries,” Mulroy continued.

"After a period of waiting time, an ambulance took him away."

“I heard him call his mother, his mom,” Davis said, referring to the video.

“Just contempt for humanity... That's what really strikes a chord in your heart and makes you wonder: Why was the sense of care and concern for this individual simply absent from the situation by all of us? who came to the scene?

Then there was a "time-out period" to get medical help for Nichols when he was injured during a traffic stop by Memphis police.

"After a period of waiting time, an ambulance took him away," he said.

  • Timeline of investigations into the death of Tire Nichols following a traffic stop and arrest by Memphis police

On January 10, three days after the arrest, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that Nichols had died from injuries sustained in the “use of force incident with officers,” according to a statement.

Nichols suffered "extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating," according to preliminary results of an autopsy commissioned by his family's attorneys.

“We can state that preliminary findings indicate that Tire suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating, and that his observed injuries are consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on video of his fatal encounter with police on January 7. 2023," attorney Benjamin Crump said in a statement.

CNN asked Crump for a copy of the autopsy commissioned by the family, but said the full report is not yet ready.

Authorities have also not released Nichols' autopsy.

Five officers face charges in Nichols' death

Following their internal investigation, Memphis police identified and terminated five officers involved in the traffic stop due to a violation of multiple department policies.

Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith were fired for failing to "use excessive force, duty to intervene and duty to render assistance," the department said in a statement. release.

Martin III, Smith, Bean, Haley, and Mills, Jr. have each been charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated unlawful imprisonment, two counts of officer misconduct, and one count of law enforcement. officer, according to Shelby County Criminal Court and Shelby County Jail records.

A statement from the Memphis Police Association, the union that represents officers, declined to comment on the firings beyond saying that the city of Memphis and Nichols' family "deserve to know the full account of the events leading up to to his death and what may have contributed to it".

The five agents have been released on bail.

At a joint news conference Thursday afternoon, Blake Ballin, Mills' attorney, and William Massey, Martin's attorney, said they had not yet seen video of the police encounter.

"No one out there that night intended for Tire Nichols to die," Massey said.

Ballin described Mills as a "respectful father", who was "devastated" to be accused of the murder.

Lawyers for other agents did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"Actually, the charges that were imposed, at least the administrative charges, were probably the most serious I've ever seen in my career, but they were absolutely appropriate," Davis said.

It is not yet clear what role each officer played in the incident.

There is now no evidence that the officers involved have acted this way in the past, Davis said, adding that police are "dig deeper into previous arrests, previous video camera footage."

Pictured above, from left to right, are former agents Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills, and below, from left to right, Demetrius Haley and Tadarrius Bean.

(Memphis Police Department)

It is unclear to what extent those employees cared for Nichols and what kind of help, if any, was provided.

Davis said his assessment is that the EMTs "did not provide adequate care."

“They started giving care and concern, but several minutes passed, which concerned all of us because we see a number of failures where people were not exercising the amount of care that we are responsible for.”

“For a period of time before paramedics arrive on the scene, firefighters are on the scene.

And they are there with Tire and the police officers before the paramedics arrive," attorney for Nichols' family, Antonio Romanucci, told CNN, adding that there were "limitations" on how much he could say.

Although she knows the agents, the chief said she did not know them personally.

Based on her impressions of them, she said they looked like other officers and were respectful when they saw her, but what she saw on the video was more of a "groupthink mentality" where no one stepped forward to intervene.

Two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols' "initial patient care" have been "removed from duty" pending the outcome of an internal investigation, said Qwanesha Ward, the department's public information officer. , to CNN's Nadia Romero.

How the Nichols family found out

Memphis Police Department officers went to the home of RowVaughn Wells, Nichols' mother, between 8 and 9 p.m. on Jan. 7 to tell her about Nichols' arrest, her mother told Lemon Friday.

Agents told Wells that her son was arrested for driving under the influence, pepper sprayed and electrocuted.

For this reason, they told him, they were going to send him to the hospital and then they would take him to the police station to register.

"Then they asked me if he used drugs or something of that nature because, according to them, it had been very difficult to put the handcuffs on him because of his great energy, it was superhuman energy," RowVaughn Wells recounted.

"What they were describing was not my son, so I was very confused."

The officers told her she couldn't go to the hospital, Wells said, and when she asked where her son was, they said it was "nearby" but didn't tell her exactly where.

"Now that I'm actually putting together the map of what happened in my head, I think they were trying to cover up what I had done when they first knocked on my door," he said.

At around 4 a.m. ET, Wells said a doctor called her from the hospital to come check on her son.

“The doctor proceeded to tell me that my son had gone into cardiac arrest and his kidneys were failing,” she said.

“This does not sound consistent with someone being shocked or pepper-sprayed,” police had told him.

“When my husband and I got to the hospital and I saw my son, he was already gone,” Wells said.

“He had been beaten to a pulp.”

Wells described the horrific injuries his son sustained when he saw him at the hospital.

“I had bruises all over.

Her head was swollen like a watermelon.

Her neck was bursting from the swelling.

They broke his neck.

My son's nose looked like an S,” she said.

“Actually, they just beat him up.

So when I saw that, I knew my son was gone, that it was the end.

Even if he lived, he would have been a vegetable.

Who was Tire Nichols?

Tire Nichols does tricks according to a YouTube video, which was shown at a press conference by his family's lawyer, Crump.

(From Austin Dean)

Nichols was the baby of his family, the youngest of four children, and he loved being a father to his son, his family said.

He was a "good boy" who spent Sundays doing laundry and getting ready for the week, said his mother, RowVaughn Wells.

“Does that sound like someone who did all these bad things, according to the police?” Wells asked.

"No one is perfect, that's fine, but he was very close."

Nichols moved to Memphis before the Covid-19 pandemic and was stuck there when the shutdowns began, his mother said.

When not working at FedEx, Nichols enjoyed photography and skateboarding, something he had been doing since he was 6 years old.

Nichols had Crohn's disease, a digestive problem, and weighed between 130 and 150 pounds despite his 6-foot-1 height, his mother said.

What the police have said since the incident

On January 18, the Justice Department said a civil rights investigation was opened into Nichols' death.

Recognizing the ongoing efforts of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the US Attorney's office "in coordination with the FBI Memphis Field Office and the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, has opened a civil rights investigation," it said. US Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee said Kevin G. Ritz, declining to provide further details.

The Memphis police chief condemned the actions of the officers involved.

“I was outraged, it was incomprehensible to me, it was inconceivable,” Davis said.

“I felt like I needed to do something and do it fast.

I don't think I've witnessed anything of that nature in my career."

Davis said the video showing the beating of Tire Nichols is just as bad, if not worse, than the 1991 video showing the Los Angeles police beating Rodney King, a motorist whose savage encounter with police sparked outrage afterward. that the images were published.

“He was in law enforcement during the Rodney King incident and he is very much aligned with that same type of behavior,” he said.

"I would say it's pretty much the same, if not worse."

“You are going to see acts that defy humanity, you are going to see a disregard for life, the duty of care that we have all sworn to, and a level of physical interaction that is above and beyond what is required in the application of the law,” he said of the images.

"I'm sure, as I said before, the people watching will feel what the family felt, and if they don't, they're not human beings."

The charges that former police officers will face for the death of Tire Nichols 4:20

Family and lawyers have seen footage of the incident

CNN has obtained portions of the audio from the police scanner that led to Nichols' arrest.

Parts of the audio are inaudible, but a brief part of the conversation between an agent and the operator can be heard.

An officer can be heard saying, "We've got a black man running" and giving instructions to "check the car's registration and see what the address is," followed by what sounds like Nichols is in trouble.

It's unclear where this audio fits into the incident sequence or which officer is speaking.

Lawyers for the family viewed the video on Monday and described it as "appalling."

A taser was used on Nichols, he was pepper-sprayed and restrained, Crump said, likening the incident to the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King in 1991.

Crump described the video as "appalling," "deplorable" and "appalling."

He said Wells, Nichols's mother, was unable to view the first minute of footage after hearing Nichols ask, "What did I do?"

At the end of the recording, Nichols can be heard calling his mother three times, the attorney said.

Nichols fled from the police, according to Rodney Wells, her stepfather, because she was afraid.

"Our son ran because he feared for his life," Rodney Wells said Monday.

“He didn't run because he was trying to get rid of drugs, weapons, nothing like that.

He ran because he feared for his life.

And when you watch the video, you'll see why he feared for his life."

Nichols' family wants the officers charged with murder, the Romanucci family's attorney told CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday night.

Video of the incident will be released this Friday afternoon, Mulroy said Thursday during a news conference.

"A lot of people's questions about what exactly happened, of course, will be answered once people see the video," Mulroy told CNN's Laura Coates on Tuesday night, noting that he thinks the city will release enough footage to show the "entirety of the incident, from start to finish."

CNN's Eric Levenson, Nick Valencia, Christina Zdanowicz, Jamiel Lynch, Jaide Timm-Garcia, Travis Caldwell, Jason Hanna and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.

police abuse Tyre Nichols

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2023-01-28

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.