The federal trial for three former Memphis police officers charged in the death of Tyre Nichols is set to begin jury selection on Monday. The former officers are charged with violating the civil rights of Nichols, a 29-year-old man whose fatal beating was caught on police cameras while also triggering protests and calls for police reform.
Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith have pleaded not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his rights through excessive force and failure to intervene and obstructed justice through witness tampering.
Nichols was pulled over in his car in January 2023 and he ran from police after he was yanked out of the vehicle. Officers caught up with Nichols and pummeled him in a Memphis neighborhood, police video showed.
Jurors will be selected from a pool of about 200 people. The trial is anticipated to last three to four weeks and will draw media nationwide. Nichols’ family is expected to attend the trial.
Memphis Police Department via AP
Nichols, who was Black, died in a hospital on Jan. 10, 2023, three days after he was kicked, punched and hit with a police baton during the traffic stop on Jan. 7. Memphis released police body camera footage and surveillance street camera tapes later that month that captured the violent incident on video, showing five officers, who also are Black, beating Nichols as he yelled for his mother about a block from his house. The video also showed the officers milling about and talking with each other as Nichols sat on the ground, struggling with his injuries.
The officers said Nichols was pulled over for reckless driving, but Memphis’ police chief has said there was no evidence to substantiate that claim.
Nichols worked for FedEx, and he enjoyed skateboarding and photography.
An autopsy report showed Nichols died from blows to the head and that the manner of death was homicide. The report described brain injuries and cuts and bruises to the head and other areas.
The three officers now facing trial, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., were fired after Nichols’ death for violating Memphis Police Department policies. They had been members of a crime suppression team called the SCORPION unit, which was created by the Memphis police force to address street crime. The group had become infamous, and, weeks after Nichols’ death, Memphis police announced that it was disbanded and “permanently deactivated.”
Shortly after their dismissal, the five officers were charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. They were then indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2023.
Mills and Martin both have pleaded guilty in federal court and they could testify in the trial. A trial date in state court has not been set.
Mills was the first of the five former officers charged in Nichols’ death to agree to a deal last November. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice as well as related state charges, and agreed to act as a cooperating witness in both federal and state investigations, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said at the time.
Martin pleaded guilty in August to excessive force and witness tampering charges, days before a deadline the judge had set for any plea agreements in the case.
