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Five former Memphis police officers were taken into custody Thursday in connection with the death of Tyre Nichols, Tennessee jail records showed.
The officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired Friday after police Chief C.J. Davis said they violated department policies during a Jan. 7 traffic stop that led to Nichols’ death.
Martin, Smith and Bean were charged with second-degree murder, three counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and one count of acting in concert to commit aggravated assault, according to Shelby County Jail records.
More coverage of the death of Tyre Nichols
Mills and Haley were charged with second-degree murder, two counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of official oppression and one count of acting in concert to commit aggravated assault.
They “were found to be directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. Nichols,” Davis said in a video statement Wednesday night.
Early findings in an autopsy show that Nichols was severely beaten before he died, his family’s attorneys said Tuesday.
The 29-year-old Nichols died on Jan. 10, days after the confrontation with police that landed him him in the hospital.
Nichols had been pulled over in the Memphis’ Hickory Hill neighborhood for alleged reckless driving, officials said. A “confrontation” followed, the department said at the time, and officers pursued Nichols when he fled on foot. While trying to take him into custody, there was another confrontation and Nichols complained of having shortness of breath, the department said.
Authorities have not provided details about the confrontation.
A photo provided by his stepfather showed a hospitalized Nichols with blood on his face and what appeared to be a swollen eye.
Nichols’ family and their attorneys, Benjamin Crump and Antonio Romanucci, have viewed the body-camera footage of the encounter, though that video has not been made public yet.
Romanucci described it as an “unadulterated, unabashed, nonstop beating” for three minutes, saying Nichols was allegedly treated like a “human piñata” by the officers.
Family attorneys have compared the footage to “the Rodney King video,” referring to the 1991 bystander video of Los Angeles police officers beating a Black man.
In Wednesday’s video statement, Davis called the incident “heinous, reckless and inhumane” — conduct she said people can see for themselves when the video of the stop is released in the coming days.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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