Memphis Police SCORPION Unit Was Supposed to Stop Violence

The Memphis police officers charged with the brutal killing of Tyre Nichols were part of a specialized unit that had been formed a little more than a year ago to help halt a surge of violence in the city.

The unit — called SCORPION, or the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods unit — was designed as a 40-officer group that would deploy in neighborhoods, with a focus on crime hot spots. The officers have often operated in unmarked vehicles, making traffic stops, seizing weapons and conducting hundreds of arrests.

The unit was such a key part of the city’s crime-fighting strategy that Mayor Jim Strickland touted it in his State of the City address a year ago, at a time when the city was tallying record homicide numbers.

Now, that unit has been involved in a fatal encounter that Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, who created the team in the fall of 2021, called “heinous, reckless and inhumane.” Five officers have been charged in Mr. Nichols’s death, and Chief Davis has ordered a review of SCORPION.

Specialized crime-fighting teams have long been the subject of scrutiny in cities around the country because they often target people of color and utilize tactics such as pretext stops, in which officers may stop someone for a minor violation and then use the opportunity to look for more serious crimes.

Memphis police reported in an initial statement that officers stopped Mr. Nichols for suspicion of reckless driving on Jan. 7 and that a “confrontation occurred” as the officers approached the vehicle. Mr. Nichols was taken to the hospital in critical condition and died three days later.

An independent autopsy found that Mr. Nichols “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to preliminary findings released by his family’s lawyers, who said Mr. Nichols told the officers that he just wanted to go home.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for the family, said teams like SCORPION that focus on “saturation patrols” often use aggressive tactics that destroy trust between the police and the communities they are supposed to serve. He called on federal officials to investigate such teams and their tactics.

“We insist on reform, transparency, and better oversight of these ‘saturation’ units, or for their removal as a tactic in American policing,” Mr. Crump said. “Our communities will be far better for it.”