Memphis police use excessive force and discriminate against black people, Justice Department finds

FILE – Members of the Memphis Police Department process a crime scene in Memphis, Tennessee, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Memphis police use excessive force and discriminate against black people. This is according to the results of an investigation by the US Department of Justice launched after the violent death of Tire Nichols following a traffic stop in 2023.

A report released Wednesday marked the conclusion of the investigation, which began six months after Nichols was kicked, punched and hit with a police baton when five officers tried to arrest him after he fled a traffic stop.

The report states, “Memphis police officers routinely violate the rights of the people they are sworn to serve.”

“The people of Memphis deserve a police department and a city that protects their civil and constitutional rights, earns their trust and keeps them safe,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in an emailed statement .

The city said in a letter released earlier Wednesday that it would not agree to negotiate federal oversight of its police department until it could review and challenge the results of the investigation.

In the letter to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Memphis City Attorney Tannera George Gibson said the city had received a request from the DOJ to enter into an agreement that would require it to “negotiate a consent decree directed at institutional policing.” and emergency services”. ”

The Justice Department announced an investigation into the Memphis Police Department in July 2023, examining the department’s “pattern or practice” of how it uses force and conducts stops, searches, and arrests, and whether it engages in discriminatory policing. The investigation was announced six months after Nichols’ brutal death at the hands of police in January 2023.

A consent decree is an agreement that requires reforms to be monitored by an independent monitor and approved by a federal judge. Federal oversight can last for years and violations can result in fines from the city.

It remains to be seen what will happen to attempts to reach such agreements between cities and the Justice Department once President-elect Donald Trump returns to office and appoints new department leadership. Under the first Trump administration, the Justice Department limited the use of consent decrees, and the Republican president-elect is expected to again radically reshape the department’s civil rights priorities.

The city’s letter said: “A legal determination supporting the claim that the city’s patterns and practices violate the Constitution requires a legal process,” which includes the city’s ability to use the DOJ’s methods of evaluating to challenge information and the credibility of witnesses.

“Until the City has had the opportunity to review, analyze and challenge the specific allegations that support your upcoming earnings report, the City cannot and will not agree to move toward or enter into a consent decree that is likely to become effective.” “It will take many years and cost Memphis residents hundreds of millions of dollars,” the letter said.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

Police video showed officers spraying Nichols with pepper spray and hitting him with a Taser before he ran away from a traffic stop. Five officers chased Nichols, kicking, punching and hitting him with a police baton just steps from his home as he called for his mother. The video showed officers running around, talking and laughing as Nichols battled his injuries.

Nichols died on January 10, 2023, three days after the beating. The five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired, charged with murder in state court and indicted by a federal grand jury on civil rights and witness tampering charges.

Nichols was black, as were the former officers. His death led to nationwide protests, raised the volume of calls for police reform across the U.S. and led to intense scrutiny of the Memphis Police Department.

The officers were part of a crime-fighting team called the Scorpion Unit, which was disbanded after Nichols’ death. The team targeted drugs, illegal weapons and violent criminals with the aim of increasing the number of arrests, sometimes using force against unarmed people.

Martin and Mills pleaded guilty under agreements with prosecutors. The other three officers were convicted in early October of witness tampering in connection with the cover-up of the beating. Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges of using excessive force and acting indifferent to Nichols’ serious injuries.

Haley was acquitted of violating Nichols’ civil rights resulting in death, but he was convicted of two lesser charges of violating his civil rights resulting in bodily harm. The five men face sentencing by a federal judge in the coming months.

Martin and Mills are also expected to change their pleas of innocence in state court, according to attorneys involved in the case. Bean, Haley and Smith have also pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder. The trial in the state case is scheduled for April 28.

Justice Department investigators have targeted other cities with similar investigations in recent years.

On Nov. 21, the agency said police in Trenton, New Jersey’s capital, had demonstrated a pattern of misconduct, including the use of excessive force and unlawful stops. The Justice Department report documented illegal arrests, officers escalating the situation with aggression, and unnecessary use of pepper spray.

In June 2023, another Justice Department investigation alleged that the Minneapolis Police Department systematically discriminated against racial minorities, violated constitutional rights, and disregarded the safety of incarcerated people for years before the killing of George Floyd.

In March 2023, the agency found that police in Louisville, Kentucky, engaged in a pattern of violating constitutional rights and discriminating against the Black community following an investigation sparked by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.

In its letter, the city of Memphis said the Justice Department’s investigation “took just 17 months to complete, compared to an average of two to three years in almost all other cases, suggesting a rush to judgment.”

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

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