The death of Tyre Nichols: 3 former officers who have acquitted all state costs

Three former police officers were acquitted on Wednesday in the constitutional court of all charges against them, including a second -degree murder, in the death of Tyre Nichols, a black man whose brutal beat in 2023 the nation was surprised.

It was the second process for the three men – Demetrius Haley, Tadarrus Bean and Justin Smith – who were accused of beating Mr. Nichols, a FedEx employee who drove home more than two years ago when he was stopped by officers.

The verdict was a sharp contrast with the outcome of the federal process of the defendants last fall. The three were found guilty of witness who in that case messs up chargesBut acquitted of a more serious indictment that violates the civil rights of Mr Nichols by causing his death. Federal jury members also found Mr Haley guilty of violating the civil rights of Mr Nichols by causing physical injury.

The jury in the state case, seated from the Chattanooga area in East Benennessee to guarantee a fair trial, considered more than eight hours after a seven-day lawsuit in the constitutional court.

The conviction in the federal process is expected later this year.

The three former officers were emotional after the judgment was read on Wednesday, with Mr. Haley seemed to cry. Mr.’s mother. Nichols, Rowvaughn Wells, who gave a witness statement about the injuries that her son sustained, showed no emotion.

“Today’s judgments are a devastating judicial miscarriage,” said Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, two civil rights lawyers who have represented Mr Nichols’ family. in a statement. They added that “we are furious and we know that we are not alone.”

Surveillance and Body Camera Statues From January 7, 2023, five officers who limit Mr Nichols showed, kick or pummelen after a traffic stop, despite his efforts to meet their aggressive orders. None of the officers reported the violence. At one point they left Mr. Nichols bruised and they fell against a police car.

He died three days later and left a young child.

The attack was criticized on a large scale as another example of a black man who was confronted with excessive force under the hands of law enforcement. All officers were also black.

They quickly dismissed Memphis and a number of other delegates, paramedics and police officers disciplined or dismissed. They also solved the elite police unit to which the five officers belonged.

An investigation into the Ministry of Justice, started after the death of Mr Nichols, discovered that the police Pattern of excessive violence and discriminatory treatment From black people, including children. More than a third of the black population of Tennessee lives in Memphis.

But jury members analyzed the actions of each individual officer: who was then Mr. Nichols was stopped for the first time, who chased him when he broke away and fled, who caught him near his mother’s house, who landed or held his arms.

Prosecutors described a tragedy that was fed by anger, adrenaline and frustration, in which a group of men helped each other to kill another man. The core of their case was rooted in the body camera and surveillance videos and the severity of Mr Nichols’ injuries.

“Are good people able to do bad things?” Melanie Headley, the assistant officer of Justice for Shelby County, asks during the closing of statements. “That night, January 7, 2023, those three officers did bad things. And when Tyre cried for help, they did nothing. Nobody helped him.”

Officers of Justice In both tests said that Mr Nichols was on the way home. When officers stopped him, they pulled him out of the car, walked pepper and shot on him with a stun gun before Mr. Nichols broke pretty and ran to his mother’s house.

More officers caught up with him, stood, kick, kick and hit him with a stick.

Time and again lawyers played the videos, stopped and began to identify the defendants and investigates every action: the bumps that the officers called ‘Hooimakers’, the stairs, the strikes and the comment afterwards.

Two of the former officers – Desmond Mills Jr. and Emmitt Martin III – plead guilty at the federal court. Only Mr. Mills testified in the State case; It remains unclear how Mr. Martin will be treated.

“It was a bad situation and I tried to get out of trouble,” said Mr. Mills, when he went on why he did not immediately reveal the scope of what had happened to Mr Nichols. “I knew it was really bad.”

The defense lawyers tried to use Mr Mills’ testimony to shift the debt for the seriousness of beating their own clients.

Lawyers have repeatedly have for Mr. Bean, Mr. Haley and Mr. Smith broken their roles and their actions were bound as an appropriate response to an unknown suspect who had run away from the police.

“It is not a matter in which they abuse the badge and try to go outside and prove a point or try to kill someone,” said John Keith Perry, a lawyer for Mr. Bean.

Lawyers for Mr Bean and Mr Smith also called witnesses of character and argued that the defendants would have been otherwise with immediate effects. And they wanted Mr. Nichols casting, whose car contained small amounts of marijuana and psilocybin -mushroom, as well as stolen ID cards, as a formidable opponent who was able to resist larger police officers.

“That is a kind of really tragic part of this whole thing,” said Stephen R. Leffler, a lawyer for Mr Haley. “Had Mr. Nichols stopped when he got the blue lights and had submitted himself to the interrogation of the officers or whatever, in all likelihood they would not have arrested him.”

It was one of the arguments that seemed to resonate with jury members, most of whom were white. After the verdict was read, all three hugged the former officers their lawyers and each other. At least one family member was told shout: “Thank you, Jesus” outside the courtroom.