City of Memphis releases hours of new footage of Tyre Nichols' beating: What we know
The City of Memphis on Tuesday released hours of additional footage of the night last year when Tyre Nichols was beaten by five now-former Memphis Police Department officers. Nichols would die in the hospital three days later.
The records released Tuesday only included video footage and audio of police radio communications.
Additional documents related to Nichols' killing, the internal MPD investigation into the incident and the five ex-officers who have been charged in state and federal court are expected to be released at a later date.
The Commercial Appeal is going through the footage, and this story will be updated when we get more information.
MPD radio communications
The records release included about two hours of MPD radio communications. On the recording, an unidentified officer radios in and says “We’ve got one male Black running.” Later, former officer Preston Hemphill ― who has not been criminally charged ― radios in that officers are at the intersection of Raines and Ross roads, that a Taser was used and provides a description of Nichols.
A dispatcher asks if they have any charges on him, and someone radios back to say SCORPION Unit officers are in the area. Another officer then radios in to say that a chemical agent was used and that a supervisor should be advised.
One of the officers requests that the tags be run because they believe Nichols lives nearby. An officer radios in, breathing heavily, and says that he is chasing Nichols before cutting out.
“He’s fighting at this time,” the dispatcher said.
One officer radios in for “an ambulance” and an ambulance radios in to say they made the scene. Moments later, an officer says, “We have him in custody.”
More: What to expect in the 4 legal cases a year after Tyre Nichols' fatal police beating
The emergency medical technician asks for the officers to bring Nichols to them, but no officer responds.
“Does the fire department need to come to you or are you bringing him back down here?” the EMT says again.
“Bring them down here,” the officer responds, and the EMT says they are on their way to them.
Minutes later, another officer radios in to “clear that shots fired out on Bear Creek. Here’s what we located down at Castlegate and Bear Creek, wasn’t no shots fired.”
After Nichols was taken to St. Francis Hospital, one officer called in to ask where Nichols was taken. He then asks for a “condition update.” That request stays open, with dispatch saying Nichols had not made it to the hospital yet.
Another officer later calls for a tow truck to tow Nichols’ car to an impound lot. Throughout the conversation, there appears to be some confusion over where the scenes are. The first scene, at the corner of Raines and Ross, was where Nichols was pulled over originally. The intersection of Castlegate and Bear Creek was where he was beaten by officers.
What we already knew about Tyre Nichols' beating, death
Nichols was driving during the evening hours of Jan. 7 when he was pulled over by MPD officers with the since-disbanded SCORPION Unit, which was billed as a violent-crime fighting unit. The officers pulled him from his car, then to the ground, while yelling conflicting orders at him.
At one point, officers could be seen on Hemphill's body camera holding Nichols on the ground, with Hemphill pointing what appeared to be a Taser at his back. One of the other officers was pepper spraying Nichols throughout the first incident.
Nichols then appeared to jump up and began to run away. Hemphill fires his Taser at Nichols, but it is not clear from the video if it hit him or not. Nichols, after the Taser was fired, pulled off his jacket and continued to run away.
As one of the other officers gives chase, Hemphill can be heard saying, "I hope they stomp his ass."
About 100 yards from his mother's house, Nichols was tackled by additional officers who saw him run by. Over the following minutes, as other officers arrive, Nichols appears to be held by his arms and punched. Eventually, Nichols falls to the ground and is kicked by another officer.
The beating continues, and officers pepper spray him more — with former officer Desmond Mills Jr. spraying himself at one point. Mills would eventually come back, extend his baton, yell, "I'm gonna baton the f--k out of you," and then hits him multiple times with his baton.
The officers then drag Nichols to an unmarked squad car and lean him against it. When medical personnel arrive, they appear to check on Nichols but wait multiple minutes before a stretcher is brought out to take Nichols to the hospital.
He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. He died three days later. Nichols' autopsy report, obtained by The Commercial Appeal through a public records request that was filled in early May, cited his cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.
The manner of death was a homicide, though that designation from a medical examiner does not necessarily indicate criminality.
More: How Tyre Nichols' parents stood strong in their publicized grief, focused on son's life
Five of the officers involved in beating Nichols were criminally charged at the state and federal level. The state charges include second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges, and the federal case charges the officers with violating Nichols' civil rights and obstruction of justice.
In November, Mills pleaded guilty to excessive force and conspiracy to witness tamper in federal court and in state court he pleaded guilty to the slew of charges related to Nichols' death. He has not yet been sentenced.
"My use of force was excessive and I gave misleading statements," Mills told Judge Mark Norris, who is overseeing the federal criminal case, when asked by the judge to give his account of what happened.
Personnel files obtained through a public records request, and reviewed by The CA, showed that four of the five criminally charged officers had been reprimanded before Nichols was beaten, and faced little-to-no consequences as they made forceful arrests with no documentation and drove recklessly to scenes. In at least two cases, officers were praised, and their actions were described by MPD colleagues as one-off events for a good employee. It is unclear if the department required records to prove those assertions.
One summary from a hearing about a domestic violence call that went undocumented credited the police officer under review for being a "top producer."
Only Tadarrius Bean had no prior reprimands.
Hemphill, who was also fired from the department but will not face criminal charges, also received prior reprimands.
Former Lt. Dewayne Smith, who oversaw the SCORPION Unit team that Hemphill and the five criminally charged officers were part of, also had prior reprimands. Smith also had a case he investigated dismissed after a federal judge found he illegally searched a man's car.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.
Micaela Watts is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal covering healthcare, hospitals, resource access, and anything else that pops up. She can be reached at micaela.watts@commercialappeal.com.
Brooke Muckerman covers Shelby County Government for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at (901) 484-6225, Brooke.Muckerman@commercialappeal.com and followed on X @BrookeMuckerman.
John Klyce covers education and children's issues for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at John.klyce@commercialappeal.com.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: New Tyre Nichols video released: What we learned from hours of footage
