Memphis Officers Had Been Reprimanded After Using Force

Two of the former Memphis police officers charged with killing Tyre Nichols had previously been reprimanded for failing to file required reports about the use of physical force in making arrests, according to records released Tuesday.

In one case from 2019, Officer Desmond Mills Jr. was assisting with an arrest after a traffic stop when he grabbed the suspect by the arms and took her to the ground, personnel records show. After a hearing two years later, Mr. Mills was given a written reprimand for failing to file the mandatory incident report.

The woman arrested in that case had filed a complaint alleging that she was beaten by officers, grabbed by the hair and slammed into a patrol car. The records describe body camera footage showing that two different officers had struggled with the woman for several minutes, with one of them striking her with a baton, before Mr. Mills and others stepped in to assist. The woman “sustained bruises and abrasions during the struggle,” the records say.

Demetrius Haley, another one of the officers charged in Mr. Nichols’s death, was also reprimanded in 2021 for failing to file a report after grabbing someone by the arm to turn them around to make an arrest. Mr. Haley said at a hearing that he had been mistaken about “the amount of force necessary to require” such documentation.

The personnel files were released on the eve of Mr. Nichols’s funeral, which was scheduled for Wednesday with the Rev. Al Sharpton set to deliver the eulogy.

At a news conference on Tuesday evening, Mr. Sharpton, flanked by Mr. Nichols’s family and civil rights activists, reiterated demands for accountability. He called for changes in federal law that would tighten rules on police conduct and make it easier to sue officers accused of wrongdoing, describing what happened to Mr. Nichols as “a disgrace to this country.”

“People from around the world watched the videotape of a man, unarmed and unprovoked, being beat to death by officers of the law,” said Mr. Sharpton, speaking at the Mason Temple, the church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech the day before he was assassinated.

“We talk a lot about gang bangers in the streets and what colors they wear,” he added. “In Memphis, it looks like they wear the blue color, that uniform.”

Other speakers echoed Mr. Sharpton’s call for stronger federal laws to regulate the police and increase accountability. It had been more than two years since the death of George Floyd, said Bishop Talbert W. Swan II of the Church of God in Christ, and yet lawmakers had not promised changes to the law.

“The stomach to go forward with this change has seemed to have left those that are now comfortably nestled in Congress,” he said. Instead, they “are now saying, ‘Fund the police,’ and have forgotten about the promises that they have made to Black people that put them in power.”

he personnel files released on Tuesday also showed that two other officers charged in Mr. Nichols’s death had disciplinary histories. Officer Emmitt Martin III was suspended for not checking his vehicle after a shift, a problem that came to light when another officer found a gun inside the vehicle. Later, Mr. Martin received a one-day suspension after failing to take a report when he responded to a reported domestic violence case.

Officer Justin Smith was suspended for two days in 2021 after crashing his vehicle, according to the records. He and another driver were injured in the crash.

The fifth officer charged in Mr. Nichols’s death, Tadarrius Bean, did not appear to have had any prior disciplinary issues since joining the department in 2020.

The disciplinary cases involving the use of force focused on whether the officers had appropriately reported the encounters; the hearings did not appear to examine whether the force had been appropriate.

The records show that the officers’ managers at times appeared at disciplinary hearings to praise the work of the officers. At Mr. Haley’s hearing, a lieutenant spoke on his behalf, saying he was “a hard-working officer” who “routinely makes good decisions.” At Mr. Martin’s hearing, records show, a lieutenant called him among the “top producers.”

All five officers were fired this month after Mr. Nichols’s death. Video from his arrest on Jan. 7 showed officers kicking, pepper-spraying and punching him. He was taken to a hospital and died three days later.

The officers were part of a dedicated “Scorpion” unit, established in 2021 to deploy in neighborhoods where the city had documented high rates of crime. The department has now disbanded the unit, with police officials saying that the “heinous actions of a few” had cast a cloud of dishonor on the unit.