MEMPHIS – A jury in a Tennessee state court on May 7 acquitted three former Memphis police officers of second-degree murder and all other charges in the 2023 beating death of black motorist Tyre Nichols.
The all-white jury, which was chosen from out of town, deliberated about eight-and-a-half hours before finding Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith not guilty of murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
All five officers charged in the case are black. Two previously pleaded guilty and testified against their former colleagues.
Nichols, 29, an aspiring photographer, avid skateboarder and father of a young son, was severely beaten by police on January 7, 2023, following a traffic stop near his home, and died in a hospital three days later.
Police video showed five black officers, who were members of the since-disbanded Scorpion street crimes detective unit, kicking, punching, pepper-spraying and striking Nichols with a baton as he cried out for his mother.
“We are obviously disappointed by today’s verdict,” said Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, whose office prosecuted the case. “We respect the jury’s decision, but we obviously disagree with it.”
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, representing Nichols’ family, called May 8’s verdict “a devastating miscarriage of justice”.
“That brutal, inhumane assault was captured on video, yet the officers responsible were acquitted,” Crump said on social media.
The judge had granted a defense motion that jurors be chosen from outside the Memphis area, out of fairness concerns considering intense publicity surrounding the case. They were selected from the Chattanooga area.
Following the verdict, Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Police Chief Cerelyn Davis issued a joint video statement pledging to build trust between police and citizens while improving police training.
“Memphis is still healing and that healing demands we work together,” Young said, adding that his prayers were with the Nichols family.
Defense lawyers argued in court that their clients pulled Nichols over for driving dangerously and suggested he provoked violence by breaking free and trying to run away, saying a police officer must make split-second decisions based on a subject’s actions.
The incident sparked nationwide protests and renewed calls for reform of the US criminal justice system, one of a series of high-profile cases of officers accused of using excessive force in the deaths of black people and other minorities, including George Floyd in 2020.
In December, during Democratic President Joe Biden’s term, the US Justice Department concluded a 17-month civil rights investigation, finding that the Memphis Police Department routinely used excessive force and discriminated against black people.
The US political climate has shifted since then.
May 8’s verdict came days after Republican President Donald Trump issued an executive order that called for “strengthening and unleashing America’s law enforcement”, while condemning efforts to “demonise law enforcement and impose legal and political handcuffs”.
The three men acquitted on state criminal charges on May 8 drew a mixed verdict when they stood trial in federal court last year. They were convicted of witness tampering in the case but cleared of charges that carried the potential for a life prison sentence.
One of them, Haley, was found guilty on two counts of the lesser charge of deprivation of rights resulting in bodily injury, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Two other former officers involved in the beating pleaded guilty to state and federal charges and testified against their former colleagues in both cases. They have yet to be formally sentenced, but reached deals with prosecutors that their terms are not to exceed 40 and 15 years, respectively. REUTERS
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