Memphis chief reverses, disbands Scorpion unit

Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Memphis on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in advance of the release of police body cam video showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by Memphis police officers. Nichols later died as a result of the incident. (AP/Gerald Herbert)
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Memphis on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in advance of the release of police body cam video showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by Memphis police officers. Nichols later died as a result of the incident. (AP/Gerald Herbert)


MEMPHIS -- The Memphis police chief Saturday disbanded the city's so-called Scorpion unit, citing a "cloud of dishonor" from newly released video that showed some of its officers beating Tyre Nichols to death after stopping the Black motorist.

Police Director Cerelyn "CJ" Davis acted a day after the harrowing video emerged, saying she listened to Nichols' relatives, community leaders and uninvolved officers in making the decision.

Protesters marching though downtown Memphis cheered when they heard the unit had been dissolved.

Referring to "the heinous actions of a few" that dishonored the unit, Davis contradicted an earlier statement that she would keep the unit. She said it was imperative that the department "take proactive steps in the healing process."

"It is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate the Scorpion unit," she said in a statement. She said the officers currently assigned to it agreed "unreservedly."

The unit is composed of three teams of about 30 officers who target violent offenders in areas beset by high crime. It had been inactive since Nichols' Jan. 7 arrest.


Scorpion stands for Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods.

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Davis said she would not shut down a unit if a few officers commit "some egregious act" and because she needed it to continue to work.

"The whole idea that the Scorpion unit is a bad unit, I just have a problem with that," Davis said then.

She became the first Black female chief in Memphis one year after George Floyd was killed at the hands of Minneapolis police. At the time, she was chief in Durham, N.C., and responded by calling for sweeping police reform.

Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, lawyers for the Nichols family, said the move was "a decent and just decision."

"We must keep in mind that this is just the next step on this journey for justice and accountability, as clearly this misconduct is not restricted to these specialty units. It extends so much further," they said.


The five officers -- Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith -- have been fired and charged with murder and other crimes in Nichols' death, which came three days after the arrest. They face up to 60 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.

Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, said the family would "continue to seek justice" and those who failed to render aid are "just as culpable as the officers who threw the blows."

After the video was released, Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. of Shelby County, which includes Memphis, said two deputies who had appeared in the footage had been "relieved of duty" pending an investigation after he was concerned by what he saw. Separately, the Memphis Fire Department said two of its employees were also being investigated for their actions at the scene.

The Memphis Police Association, the union representing officers, said in a written statement the organization condemns "mistreatment of ANY citizen nor ANY abuse of power."

"We have faith in the Criminal Justice System," said Lt. Essica Cage-Rosario, the union's president. "That faith is what we will lean on in the coming days, weeks and months to ensure the totality of circumstances is revealed."

A Memphis police spokeswoman declined to comment on the other officers' conduct.

'NOBODY TRIED'

The videos released Friday show police beating Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, for three minutes while screaming profanities at him. They also left many unanswered questions about the traffic stop and about other law enforcement officers who stood by as Nichols lay motionless on the pavement.

Four separate clips, from police body cameras and a surveillance camera mounted on a utility pole, were shared online, adding up to nearly an hour of footage.

"Nobody tried to stop anything. They have a duty to intervene, a duty to render care," Brenda Goss Andrews, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said in an interview after viewing the video.


She also was struck by the immediate aggression from officers as soon as they got out of the car: "It just went to 100. ... This was never a matter of de-escalation," Goss Andrews said, adding, "The young man never had a chance from the moment that he was stopped."

Blake Ballin, the lawyer for Mills, told AP in a statement Saturday that the videos "produced as many questions as they have answers."

Some of those will focus on what Mills "knew and what he was able to see" and whether his actions "crossed the lines that were crossed by other officers during this incident," Ballin said.

Davis acknowledged that the Police Department has a supervisor shortage and said the lack of a supervisor in the arrest was a "major problem." City officials have pledged to provide more of them.

It's not clear why the traffic stop happened in the first place. One officer can be heard on video saying that Nichols wouldn't stop and then swerved as though he intended to hit the officer's car. The officer says that when Nichols pulled up to a red light, the officers jumped out.

But Davis said the department cannot substantiate the reason for the stop.

VIDEO REACTIONS

The release of the video footage drew a swift avalanche of reaction from law enforcement officials, lawmakers from both parties, Black Lives Matter activists and many other people across the country.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said he was deeply disturbed by the video, while fellow Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., described the video as "difficult to watch."

"What I saw last night in that video shocked me to my core, but I can't say I haven't seen it before," Gerald Griggs, the president of the Georgia NAACP, said at a rally in Atlanta.

Memphis Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins told reporters "I cried," after watching an interview with Nichols's mother, RowVaughn Wells.

The NBA also released a statement of support for Nichols's family, while NBA champion LeBron James opted to share an upbeat montage video of Nichols, a keen skateboarder, skating happily.

"I don't have to watch the video to know what happened to him," said Amber Sherman, a member of the Memphis chapter of Black Lives Matter. "I can see the picture of him in the hospital and know he was brutally murdered."

Nichols's death has resonated widely both because of the brutality of the beating and the harrowing nature of the video, which shows him screaming for his mother, just a short distance from home.

President Joe Biden spoke with the Nichols family Friday and in a later statement said he, "like so many," was "outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video," calling it yet another "reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day."

Speaking to reporters on the White House grounds before departing on Marine One, he added that Nichols's death was also about the "image of America," and "has a lot to do with whether or not we are the country we say we are."

Nichols' mother said she hopes to answer her son's pleas and told Biden her son's death would serve as a call to action.

"My son will bring good out of all of this," Wells said, "because he was a beautiful soul."

Vice President Kamala Harris lamented that "once again, America mourns a life brutally cut short at the hands of those sworn to protect and serve."

Several Republican and Democratic politicians outside of Tennesee also spoke of their anger.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, tweeted that he couldn't bring himself to watch the video but had read descriptions, adding "we are heartsick and we ache with sorrow for Tyre's family and loved ones."

New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, said he was "devastated" and "outraged."

"As someone who spent decades fighting for police diversity and against police abuse, I feel betrayed," the Democrat said.

"Tyre Nichols should be alive today," said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, noting in a separate statement that Nichols was a Sacramento native.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said the released footage brought "pain, horror, and terror."

During a speech Saturday in Harlem, the Rev. Al Sharpton said the beating was particularly egregious because the officers were Black, too.

"Your Blackness will not stop us from fighting you. These five cops not only disgraced their names, they disgraced our race," Sharpton said.

TROOPS TO W. MEMPHIS

In Memphis, for days before the video release, city officials, civic leaders and Nichols' family beseeched the community not to allow protests to become destructive. The relatively quick criminal charges, which Nichols' family applauded, may have helped head off conflagrations.

Even so, several dozen demonstrators in Memphis blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River toward Arkansas. Protests were scattered and nonviolent.

In a tweet, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she had authorized the National Guard to serve as reinforcements to law enforcement in West Memphis and help keep highways operational and safe.

"We are praying for Tyre Nichols' family and all of Memphis," Sanders said in the tweet. "May God bring peace, healing and justice."

A spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Transportation said the eastbound lanes of the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River were to be closed from 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday, with traffic diverted to Interstate 55, due to protests. Protesters also blocked traffic in New York City, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.

Hunter Dempster, an organizer with Decarcerate Memphis, a group pushing for accountability and fairness in the criminal justice system, said he and others were blocking the Interstate 55 bridge because they were "tired of empty promises."

"At the end of the day," he said, "what recourse do we have?"

Demonstrators have assembled in Washington, D.C., Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta and in Times Square in New York.

Officials said minor acts ofvandalism were committed Friday during a protest outside the Los Angeles Police Department's headquarters, which was blocked by police in riot gear.

In Sacramento, Calif., where Nichols grew up before moving to Memphis, family members planned a candlelight vigil for Monday, and local authorities urged protesters to demonstrate peacefully.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the video filled him with "anger, sorrow and revulsion" and Police Chief Kathy Lester called the actions of the Memphis officers "inhumane and inexcusable."

Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper said the "horrendous acts displayed by these few officers do not reflect the values of this office or law enforcement as a whole."

Information for this article was contributed by Adrian Sainz, Aaron Morrison, Travis Loller and Rebecca Reynolds of The Associated Press; by Rick Rojas of The New York Times; by Adela Suliman, Andrew Jeong, Robert Klemko, Emily Davies, Mark Berman, Justine McDaniel, Luis Velarde and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff of The Washington Post; and by Andy Davis of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

  photo  Local activist leaders organize a march for Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police during a traffic stop, in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP)
 
 
  photo  Protesters take over a bridge Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn., as authorities release police video depicting five Memphis officers beating Tyre Nichols, whose death resulted in murder charges and provoked outrage at the country's latest instance of police brutality. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
 
 
  photo  Memphis City Councilman JB Smiley Jr., center, marches with local activists demanding justice for Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police during a traffic stop, in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP)
 
 
  photo  The image from video released on Jan. 27, 2023, by the City of Memphis, shows Tyre Nichols leaning against a car after a brutal attack by five Memphis police officers on Jan. 7, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn. Nichols died on Jan. 10. The five officers have since been fired and charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. (City of Memphis via AP)
 
 
  photo  Activists momentarily surround an MPD cruiser during a march for Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police during a traffic stop, in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP)
 
 
  photo  Nakia Harrison, left, along with her children Darius, Devonte, and Daniel Smith, attend a rally for Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police during a traffic stop, in Memphis, Tenn., on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP)
 
 
  photo  Protesters march down the street Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn., as authorities release police video depicting five Memphis officers beating Tyre Nichols, whose death resulted in murder charges and provoked outrage at the country's latest instance of police brutality. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
 
 
  photo  This photo provided by the Nichols family shows Tyre Nichols, who had a passion for photography and was described by friends as joyful and lovable. Nichols was just minutes from his home in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 7, 2023, when he was pulled over by police and fatally beaten. Five Memphis police officers have since been charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. (Courtesy of the Nichols family via AP)
 
 
  photo  This combo of booking images provided by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office shows, from left, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. The five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop, records showed Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (Shelby County Sheriff's Office via AP)
 
 



 Gallery: Nation reacts to Tyre Nichols videos



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