Editor’s Notes: This article contains videos of violence and violence.
CNN
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Tyro Nichols screamed for his mother and Memphis police beat him several times — including in the face while his hands were cuffed — near the end of Blackman’s violent encounter with police this month, a video released by city officials shows.
And although paramedics arrived minutes after the police left, Mr Nichols was apparently left on the road several times without help before an ambulance arrived.
The city on Friday night released body camera and surveillance video of the Jan. 7 stop and hit that left a 29-year-old man dead at the hospital. his injuries after three days. The release comes a day after five Memphis police officers, also black and fired, were charged with murder.
The images shocked legal experts and outraged officials including President Joe Biden, who said it was “yet another painful reminder of the deep fear, pain, and exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans face every day.”
Latest update: Memphis releases video of Tire Nichols being arrested
Protesters in Memphis took to Interstate 55 Friday night after the video was released, blocking all lanes of the highway bridge connecting the city in western Tennessee to Arkansas.
The highlights of Nichols’ experience were as follows: Police pulled Nichols over in Memphis on suspicion of reckless driving. When police pulled him out of his car, a fight ensued and he fled; A few minutes later, police find him and beat or kick him several times, video footage shows.
Excerpts from these videos are:
The first encounter after the traffic stop, around 8:24 p.m., Nichols was heard calmly, according to body camera video from an officer who arrived at the scene.
As the officer approaches the scene, another officer yells at Nichols to “Get out of the car.”
Police are pulling Nichols out of the car and someone can be heard saying, “Put him down and turn his ass.” Nichols replies, “I didn’t do anything,” and, “Well, I’m down.”
The police are yelling at him to lie down and threatening to arrest him. A soldier tells her, “Bitch, put (your hands) behind your back before I break them.”
Nichols can be heard telling them, “You’re doing too much right now. …I’m just trying to get home. I’m down!”
At 8:25 p.m., an officer sprayed Nichols with pepper spray. Nichols then tried to stop and started to run towards the soldier as someone threw a stone at him that did not meet with him.
A fight begins. Nichols gets up and runs away, and the police chase him.
A separate dashcam video shows what happens when police arrest Nichols in a nearby street minutes later, at around 8:34 p.m.
Nichols is screaming for her mother as the video shows a police officer arriving at the scene.
Video: Lawyer shares Nichols called his mother three times
The officers tell Nichols to “give them his hand,” as the battle rages on the ground. Another officer asks Nichols, “Do you want to spray again?”
Two officers punched and beat Nichols while he was on the ground.
Nichols screams: “Mooooom!” and continues to call his mother for a while.
An officer was heard yelling at Nichols: “I’m going to trouble you.” Give me your stupid hands.”
Police surveillance video with remote control in this area it gives a clear view of the punch. This shows the police hitting Nichols six times without provocation.
As the camera pans to the scene, an officer pushes Nichols hard to the ground with a knee or leg. Nichols is pulled up by his shoulders and punched in the face twice.
After being pulled to the ground, Nichols was hit in the back with what appeared to be a nightstick. After being dragged to his knees, Nichols is beaten again.
Once on his feet, the video shows officers punching Nichols several times in the face while his hands are pinned behind his body, and then he falls to his knees. Less than a minute later, an officer is seen pushing Nichols. Three minutes after their first encounter on camera, the officers let go of Nichols, rolling him onto his back.
A minute later, Nichols was pulled to the side of the road and stood next to a car, while the police ignored him for three and a half minutes.
In the body camera video, officers can be heard talking about the encounter.
“He shook – pow – almost hit me,” one officer says. “Then he took a (inaudible) gun,” the deputy says.
One trooper said Nichols “put his hand on my gun,” and “the woman was holding it.”
An officer later described the traffic stop to Nichols: “We tried to stop him. He didn’t stop.”
One soldier said: “He went around, swerved, almost hit my car.”
Van Jones, a former special adviser to President Barack Obama, said this to CNN after watching the videos: “(Nichols) comes from a calm voice (at first) and fear…
“Obviously it’s too much power,” former New York City police Lt. Darrin Porcher told CNN. “The most troubling thing is that no police officer wanted to intervene and say, ‘Stop.’ ”
Ten minutes into the camera video – a few minutes after the police stopped – a man who appears to be a paramedic grabs Nichols for the first time, around 8:41 pm But the responders are able to leave Nichols again and again before the ambulance arrives.
Two minutes after paramedics started to help Nichols, he was seen slumped to the side and appeared to be hit hard by a device after a bright light flashed in his face. No one seems to be helping Nichols as he tries to get up, and falls again.
A minute later, police can be seen swarming around Nichols, only to leave as he falls to his side again.
First responders spent about five minutes standing over Nichols, occasionally shining a light on his face, before leaving.
Read the stepfather’s description of the video: ‘No one helped him’
Nichols curls up on the floor, unassisted. The medical equipment is returned to Nichols’ side three minutes later, the camera footage shows.
Footage shows that 21 minutes have passed since the first responders showed up to when the ambulance arrives on camera at 9:02 p.m.
Two deputies with the Shelby County sheriff’s office were placed on leave pending an investigation after the sheriff viewed the footage Friday.
“I’m concerned about the two deputies who showed up after the Tire Nichols police collision,” Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. said.
“I have started an internal investigation into the behavior of these MPs to find out what happened and if any policies were violated.” Both have been suspended pending the outcome of the lead investigation.
Earlier, two fire department employees who were among Nichols’ “first patients” were placed on leave “while an internal investigation is conducted,” department spokeswoman Qwanesha Ward told CNN’s Nadia Romero.
The US Department of Justice has said it is conducting a federal investigation into Nichols’ death.
On Friday, the chief of police in Memphis said that the video will show “things that are offensive to people.”
Police have found no evidence of a motive for Nichols’ reckless driving before his fatal crash, Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis told CNN’s Don Lemon before the videos were released.
Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, told CNN Friday before the videos were released: “It’s still like a nightmare right now.”
“I’m still trying to make sense of it all and trying to wrap my head around it all,” Wells said. “I don’t have my son. I will never have my son again.”
Police chiefs in major cities across the country said they were monitoring any possible unrest this weekend in light of the video.
Police officers across the country have come under scrutiny for their treatment of black people, especially since the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020 and the movement of protests known as Black Lives Matter.
Before the videos were released publicly, Wells called on supporters to remain peaceful during the protests, saying in Memphis on Thursday that he wanted “everyone of you to protest peacefully.”
“I don’t want us to burn down our cities, destroy the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” Wells said. And if you are here because of me and Tyre, you will protest peacefully.
A Memphis church plans to hold a funeral for Nichols on Wednesday.
The five Memphis police officers named – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr. – was fired on January 20 for violating police regulations including excessive use of force, police said.
He was later charged this week. Each has been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated robbery, two counts of criminal mischief and one count of criminal conspiracy, said Mulroy, the Shelby County district attorney.
Martin and Haley were released on $350,000 bond, according to Shelby County Jail records, while Smith, Bean and Mills Jr. he was released after posting a $250,000 bond.
The five former officials are due to go on trial on February 17.
Blake Ballin, the attorney for Mills Jr., one of the officers, said he doesn’t believe his client can “capture” the allegations against him, and that his client is “sorry” that he was “connected to the death” of Nichols.
Ballin told CNN that he had not seen the video, but had spoken to people who had. He encouraged those watching the video to “see each soldier individually.”
“The standards between these five officers are different, and I hope you will see in this video that my client Desmond Mills is not guilty of the charges against him,” Ballin said.
