CNN
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It’s been nearly three weeks since a traffic stop in Memphis led to a violent arrest and, three days later, the death of the 29-year-old black driver.
Tire Nichols was hospitalized after being arrested Jan. 7, police said. Five Memphis Police Department officers, who are also black, were fired after an internal investigation and face criminal charges, including charges of second-degree murder.
Key questions remain unanswered as the nation – already vigilant about how police treat people of color, especially after the 2020 mass protests – waits for police to release footage of the incident.
Here’s what we know:
On Jan. 7, around 8:30 p.m., Memphis officers stopped a vehicle for suspected 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 apprehended him and “another confrontation ensued,” resulting in Nichols’ arrest, police said.
It is unclear what might have appeared reckless in his driving, how far Nichols fled on foot, who was involved in the first encounter with the police, how the officers apprehended him, how long it lasted these “confrontations,” why the officers felt compelled to confront Nichols twice, and where exactly it happened.
At a press conference on Thursday, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said there was a “time lapsed” to get medical help for Nichols when he was injured in a traffic stop by Memphis police.
Mulroy said there was a traffic stop and an initial altercation involving several officers and Nichols. Pepper spray was deployed and Nichols ran, he said.
“There was another altercation at a nearby location where the serious injuries were sustained by Mr. Nichols,” Mulroy continued. “After some time of waiting, he was taken away by an ambulance.”
On Jan. 10, three days after the arrest, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that Nichols had died from injuries sustained during “the use of force incident with officers,” according to a statement.
Nichols suffered “profuse bleeding from a severe beating”, according to preliminary results of an autopsy commissioned by his family’s attorneys.
“We can say that preliminary findings indicate that Tyr suffered profuse bleeding from a severe beating, and that his observed injuries are consistent with what family and attorneys have seen on video of his fatal encounter with the police on January 7, 2023,” the attorney said. Benjamin Crump said in a statement.
CNN asked Crump for a copy of the autopsy the family commissioned, but he said the full report was not yet ready. Authorities have also not released Nichols’ autopsy.
After their internal investigation, Memphis police identified and fired five officers involved in the traffic stop due to their violation of multiple department policies.
Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith were fired for breaching their “excessive use of force, duty to intercede and duty to render assistance,” the department said. in a press release.
Martin III, Smith, Bean, Haley and Mills, Jr. were each charged with second degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression, according to the two Shelby County felons. Shelby County court and jail records.
Although the five former officers have been charged, it is unclear what role each officer played in the incident.
A statement from the Memphis Police Association, the union representing officers, declined to comment on the layoffs beyond saying that the city of Memphis and Nichols’ family ‘deserve to know the full story of the events leading up to his death. and what may have contributed to it.”
In addition to the officers’ firing, two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols’ “initial patient care” were also fired, the department’s public information officer, Qwanesha Ward, told Nadia CNN’s Romero.
It is unclear to what extent these employees cared for Nichols and what type of assistance was provided, if any.
When asked Tuesday what those firefighters had or hadn’t done, family attorney Antonio Romanucci told CNN there were ‘limitations’ on what he could say. .
“For some time before EMS services arrive at the scene, Fire is on site. And they are there with Tyr and the police before the EMS arrive,” he said.
Nichols was the baby of his family, the youngest of four children and he loved being the father of his son, his family said.
He was a “good boy” who spent his Sundays doing laundry and getting ready for the week, said his mother, RowVaughn Wells.
“Does this sound like someone the police said did all these bad things?” says Wells. “Nobody’s perfect OK, but he was damn close.”
Nichols moved to Memphis before the Covid-19 pandemic hit and was stuck there when things stalled, his mother said.
When he wasn’t working the second shift at FedEx, Nichols enjoyed photography and skateboarding, something he had been doing since he was 6 years old.
Nichols suffered from Crohn’s disease, a digestive problem, and weighed between 140 and 145 pounds despite being six foot three inches tall, his mother said.
On January 18, the Justice Department said a civil rights investigation had been opened into Nichols’ death.
Recognizing the continued efforts of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office “in coordination with the FBI Field Office in Memphis and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, has initiated a civil rights investigation,” said U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, Kevin G. Ritz said, declining to provide further details.
The Memphis police chief condemned the actions of the officers involved.
“It’s not just a professional failure. It’s a basic lack of humanity to another individual,” Chief Cerelyn Davis said in a YouTube video Wednesday, her first on-camera comments about the arrest that preceded Nichols’ death. “This incident was heinous, reckless and inhumane, and in the vein of transparency, when the video is released in the coming days, you will see it for yourselves.”
CNN has obtained portions of the police scanner audio leading up to Nichols’ arrest. Some parts of the audio are inaudible, but you can hear a brief portion of the conversation between an officer and the dispatcher.
An officer can be heard saying, “We have a black man running” and giving instructions to “run this registration tag and see what the address is,” followed by what sounds like Nichols in distress.
It is unclear where this audio fits into the sequence of the incident or which officer is speaking.
The family’s lawyers watched the video on Monday and described it as “odious”. Nichols was tasered, pepper sprayed and restrained, Crump said, and compared it to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991.
Crump described the video as “appalling”, “deplorable” and “odious”. He said Wells, Nichols’ mother, was unable to watch the first minute of the footage after hearing Nichols ask, “What did I do?” At the end of the footage, Nichols can be heard calling his mother three times, the lawyer said.
Nichols fled the police, according to Rodney Wells, his stepfather, because he was scared.
“Our son ran away because he was afraid for his life,” Rodney Wells said Monday. “He didn’t run away because he was trying to get rid of drugs, guns, none of that. He fled because he was afraid for his life. And when you see the video, you will understand why he was afraid 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 footage of the incident will be released after 6 p.m. Pacific time on Friday, Mulroy said Thursday at a news conference.
“A lot of questions from people about what exactly happened will of course 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 entire incident, from the very beginning to the very end.
Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled RowVaughn Wells’ first name.
