Memphis police are under scrutiny as the Justice Department finds racial bias and excessive force in a new report

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – The fatal beating of Tire Nichols by officers after he ran away during a traffic stop in January 2023 exposed serious problems in the Memphis Police Department, from the use of excessive force to the mistreatment of Black people in the community, according to a federal investigation majority black city.

A report released Wednesday revealed the results of a 17-month Justice Department investigation into Memphis police that began after officers kicked, punched and hit Nichols with a baton. Members of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division plan to discuss the report during a news conference Thursday. City officials are then expected to provide a rebuttal at their own press availability.

Nichols was black, as were the former officers involved in his beating. His death sparked nationwide protests, raised the volume of calls for police reform across the U.S. and focused intense scrutiny on the Memphis Police Department, more than half of whose members are Black, including Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis.

The federal investigation examined the department’s “pattern or practice” of how it uses force and conducts stops, searches and arrests, and whether it engages in discriminatory policing. In a letter released Wednesday ahead of the report, the city said it would not agree to negotiate federal oversight of its police department until it could review and challenge the investigation’s findings.

The investigation found that officers punched, kicked and used other force against people who were already handcuffed or shackled. This was described as unconstitutional, but was almost always approved after the fact by superiors. Officers resort to force “almost immediately in response to minor, nonviolent crimes that can cause pain or injury, even when the subjects are not aggressive,” investigators found.

“Memphis police officers routinely violate the rights of the people they are sworn to serve,” the report said, noting that such violations disproportionately affect Black people.

The report said Memphis police cited or arrested Black people for loitering or curfew violations at 13 times the rate of white people, and cited or arrested Black people for disorderly conduct at 3.6 times the rate of white people, according to the report the report.

Police video showed officers spraying Nichols with pepper spray and hitting him with a Taser before he fled a traffic stop. Five officers chased Nichols 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 three days after the beating. The five officers were fired, charged with murder in state court and indicted by a federal grand jury on civil rights and witness tampering charges.

The report specifically mentions the Nichols case and addresses the police practice of flooding neighborhoods with traffic stops. But other cases are also described, including one in which officers pepper-sprayed, kicked and fired a Taser at an unarmed man with a mental illness who tried to grab a $2 soda at a gas station .

The investigation cited police training that “prepared officers to believe that force was the most likely way to end an encounter” rather than speaking to a suspect to de-escalate the situation. In one training example, officers were told, “If a fight is unavoidable, injure them first and seriously injure them.”

In a letter to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Memphis City Attorney Tannera George Gibson said the city has received a request from the Justice Department to enter into a consent decree with federal oversight of the police department – but will not do so until they review it and can challenge the results of the investigation.

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.

The officers in the Nichols case 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.

Memphis police never established policies and procedures to run the unit, despite concerns that it received minimal oversight, the report said. Prosecutors told investigators that there were some “outrageous” discrepancies between body camera footage and arrest reports and that if the cases went to trial they would be “laughed out of court.” The unit’s misconduct led to the dismissal of dozens of criminal cases.

Justice Department investigators have targeted other cities with similar investigations in recent years, including Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd and Louisville, Kentucky, after an investigation was sparked by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.