City of Memphis releases hours of new footage of Tyre Nichols' beating: What we know
The City of Memphis on Tuesday released hours of additional footage of the night last year when Tyre Nichols was beaten by five now-former Memphis Police Department officers. Nichols would die in the hospital three days later.
The records released Tuesday only included video footage and audio of police radio communications. While some of the newly-released footage ― including from traffic, skycop and business security cameras ― shed very little light on why Nichols was stopped, the additional body camera footage and audio paint a fuller picture of the response by the police department and additional conversation between the officers after the beating.
Tuesday afternoon, attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who are representing Nichols' family in a $550 million lawsuit against the city, MPD and several individuals, said they were reviewing the footage.
The latest update: As some Memphis officers joked about Tyre Nichols beating, others criticized special unit
"As our legal team reviews the new body cam videos of Tyre Nichols' horrific death at the hands of Memphis Police, we expect the videos to affirm what we have said from day one: that there was absolutely no justification for the officers' brutal and inhumane actions. We will continue our unflinching look at this tragedy and stand strongly with Tyre's family in their continued grief and fight for justice."
Additional documents related to Nichols' killing, the internal MPD investigation into the incident and the five ex-officers who have been charged in state and federal court will also be released.
"The City is continuing to review documents for compliance with court order and will begin releasing documents in 14 days," the city said on its website Tuesday.
New footage shows MPD officers talking to Tyre Nichols' parents
Lt. Dewayne Smith, who was not criminally charged and resigned prior to his administrative hearing, can be seen in Desmond Mills' body camera knocking on the door of RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, Nichols' parents.
"Are you familiar with a Tyre Nichols?" Smith asks Rodney Wells. Rodney asks what he's been arrested for.
Smith pauses, then Mills says, "DUI," and Smith tells Rodney that Nichols was being charged with a DUI.
"DUI?" RowVaughn Wells asks. "Why? What happened?"
"Well, he was intoxicated," Smith replied. He asks if Nichols had taken any narcotics because "he was on something other than alcohol" and they "couldn't get anything from him."
RowVaughn's answer could not be heard, but Smith responded with "no, it was something other than marijuana."
RowVaughn then asks, "Where's he at?" and Smith tells her that Nichols is with paramedics and being treated "in the neighborhood," but doesn't give a specific location.
"Is he going to jail?" RowVaughn asks
"Yes ma'am, he's gonna go to jail after he gets some medical treatment," Smith told her.
As the two officers walked away, Smith tells Mills that the Wells family "know more than what they said."
Nearing the scene, Mills tells Smith "He need to make it, though. He ain't looking too good."
Smith tells Mills that he "did everything by the book, though," as they walk by an EMT who shouts, "His oxygen is very low."
Additional, extended body camera footage shows officer reaction
Footage from officer Chris Wilson's body-worn camera showed officers move Nichols from below a street sign, leaning him up against a car. Demetrius Haley, one of the five ex-MPD officers who has been criminally charged, begins explaining what he saw to other officers who had just made the scene.
“That man got Tased, with the prongs running down f--king Ross (Road),” Haley said. “He on something bad. We did him up, won’t stop. We did it again, won’t stop. I’m talking about finna take folks out in oncoming traffic and everything.”
After a brief pause, Haley walks off camera, shaking his head, and said, “F--k, mane.”
Wilson, who is not facing criminal charges, then walks over to former officer Justin Smith, asking, “What’s up man? Good?” before giving him a fist bump.
While standing over Nichols, officers can be heard speculating that Nichols is “high as a kite,” before talking about the force they used on him.
“It was just a traffic stop,” one officer, who cannot be seen on camera, said. “Shit, the motherf--ker get out the car, and we were like, ‘mane, bruh, chill.’ Motherf--ker started fighting.”
A previously released video showed Nichols trying to speak with officers before one pulled him from the car and took him to the ground during that initial traffic stop.
“He strong as a motherf--ker,” former officer Tadarrius Bean said to some of the bystanders as EMTs evaluated Nichols.
In one of the clips of officer Irma Montes' rear seat camera, a female officer, presumably Montes, can be heard talking with another individual about concerns they have with the SCORPION Unit's tactics. At one point, the other person said "I feel like they're a little too..." before Montes jumped in and said, "hands on?"
MPD radio communications
The records release included about two hours of MPD radio communications. On the recording, an unidentified officer radios in and says “We’ve got one male Black running.” Later, former officer Preston Hemphill ― who has not been criminally charged ― radios in that officers are at the intersection of Raines and Ross roads, that a Taser was used and provides a description of Nichols.
A dispatcher asks if they have any charges on him, and someone radios back to say SCORPION Unit officers are in the area. Another officer then radios in to say that a chemical agent was used and that a supervisor should be advised.
One of the officers requests that the tags be run because they believe Nichols lives nearby. An officer radios in, breathing heavily, and says that he is chasing Nichols before cutting out.
“He’s fighting at this time,” the dispatcher said.
One officer radios in for “an ambulance” and an ambulance radios in to say they made the scene. Moments later, an officer says, “We have him in custody.”
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The emergency medical technician asks for the officers to bring Nichols to them, but no officer responds.
“Does the fire department need to come to you or are you bringing him back down here?” the EMT says again.
“Bring them down here,” the officer responds, and the EMT says they are on their way to them.
Minutes later, another officer radios in to “clear that shots fired out on Bear Creek. Here’s what we located down at Castlegate and Bear Creek, wasn’t no shots fired.”
After Nichols was taken to St. Francis Hospital, one officer called in to ask where Nichols was taken. He then asks for a “condition update.” That request stays open, with dispatch saying Nichols had not made it to the hospital yet.
Another officer later calls for a tow truck to tow Nichols’ car to an impound lot. Throughout the conversation, there appears to be some confusion over where the scenes are. The first scene, at the corner of Raines and Ross, was where Nichols was pulled over originally, or the intersection of Castlegate and Bear Creek was where he was beaten by officers.
What else we learned from the new video, audio
Although adding detail to the night Nichols was beaten, none of the audio or video that was released Tuesday showed the initial stop. The audio between officers at the scene and dispatch also did not include a conversation over why Nichols was stopped.
MPD’s initial narrative was that Nichols had been pulled over for driving recklessly, though MPD Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis later said there was no evidence to show Nichols had done so. Throughout the video, officers can be heard recounting the incident, with one saying everything started with a traffic stop.
That officer went on to say that Nichols got out of the car and “started fighting,” but video that was previously released showed that Nichols was not the aggressor and that it was an officer who pulled him from the car and took him to the ground.
In the initial release of the compiled footage from the night of Jan. 7, 2023, the public learns the officers involved made several claims in the aftermath of the beating. Attorneys for the Nichols family have characterized these claims as the accused officers seeking to set up their defense preemptively.
Those claims ― Nichols was high on drugs, he was endangering lives of drivers around him due to erratic driving, he put his hands on one of the officers weapons, and that he exhibited superhuman strength due to intoxication ― were expanded on in more detail through the newly released footage.
Haley, in the first minute after the beating, as officers stood over a slumped over, bleeding, and incoherent Nichols, paced around the scene.
“He must have been on drugs, something bad,” Haley said. “I’m talkin' like, he was about to take people out, driving in oncoming traffic and everything.”
The footage from Haley’s body camera shows the other four officers gathered, catching their breath, and nodding in agreement. Another officer claims that Nichols was tased, but took the prongs out and kept running after the initial stop.
This claim is contradicted by another officer, the officer who deployed his taser on Nichols.
As the suspects confer, Hemphill, who is still at the initial scene where the suspects aggressively pull Nichols from his blue Nissan Sentra, tells his own version of events to another law enforcement officer.
“I shot him,” with a Taser, Hemphill said, “but, it didn’t hit him.”
Throughout the body camera footage of all five officers present at the scene where Nichols lay dying, the tone shifts initially from claims of the danger Nichols posed to one of concern, possibly as the extent of Nichols' injuries becomes clearer.
“He alright?” one officer asked.
A now-former Memphis Fire Department paramedic, Robert Long, is seen reaching down towards Nichols on the ground multiple times.
“Fifteen seconds of a sternal rub,” Long says to the surrounding officers.
“Nichols, Nichols,” another officer can be heard calling out.
Officers then start calling out to Nichols repeatedly, at one point one officer asks for Nichols' mother’s name. Another officer, in the background, suggests Nichols receive “a shot of naloxone,” a drug used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Many of the statements from the former MPD officers who have been charged with killing Nichols and violating his civil rights were inconsistent with video of the incident and beating. One aspect that was consistent, however, was statements about hitting Nichols repeatedly.
Dewayne Smith’s administrative hearing file alleged that he was misleading when speaking with Nichols’ parents, but Mills’ body camera footage provided more detail as to how he was misleading the parents. Smith also insinuated that Nichols was high on something other than marijuana, telling the parents the officers “couldn’t get anything from him.”
Dispatch radio also points to confusion among officers and EMTs at the scene, with EMTs repeatedly asking if officers were bringing Nichols to the ambulance or if the ambulance was needed at the scene. Minutes later, an officer calls in and requests EMTs come to the scene.
What we already knew about Tyre Nichols' beating, death
Nichols was driving during the evening hours of Jan. 7 when he was pulled over by MPD officers with the since-disbanded SCORPION Unit, which was billed as a violent-crime fighting unit. The officers pulled him from his car, then to the ground, while yelling conflicting orders at him.
At one point, officers could be seen on Hemphill's body camera holding Nichols on the ground, with Hemphill pointing what appeared to be a Taser at his back. One of the other officers was pepper spraying Nichols throughout the first incident.
Nichols then appeared to jump up and began to run away. Hemphill fires his Taser at Nichols, but it is not clear from the video if it hit him or not. Nichols, after the Taser was fired, pulled off his jacket and continued to run away.
As one of the other officers gives chase, Hemphill can be heard saying, "I hope they stomp his ass."
About 100 yards from his mother's house, Nichols was tackled by additional officers who saw him run by. Over the following minutes, as other officers arrive, Nichols appears to be held by his arms and punched. Eventually, Nichols falls to the ground and is kicked by another officer.
The beating continues, and officers pepper spray him more — with former officer Desmond Mills Jr. spraying himself at one point. Mills would eventually come back, extend his baton, yell, "I'm gonna baton the f--k out of you," and hit him multiple times with his baton.
The officers then drag Nichols to an unmarked squad car and lean him against it. When medical personnel arrive, they appear to check on Nichols but wait multiple minutes before a stretcher is brought out to take Nichols to the hospital.
He was taken to St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. He died three days later. Nichols' autopsy report, obtained by The Commercial Appeal through a public records request that was filled in early May, cited his cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head.
The manner of death was a homicide, though that designation from a medical examiner does not necessarily indicate criminality.
More: How Tyre Nichols' parents stood strong in their publicized grief, focused on son's life
Five of the officers involved in beating Nichols were criminally charged at the state and federal level. The state charges include second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges, and the federal case charges the officers with violating Nichols' civil rights and obstruction of justice.
In November, Mills pleaded guilty to excessive force and conspiracy to witness tamper in federal court and in state court he pleaded guilty to the slew of charges related to Nichols' death. He has not yet been sentenced.
"My use of force was excessive and I gave misleading statements," Mills told Judge Mark Norris, who is overseeing the federal criminal case, when asked by the judge to give his account of what happened.
Personnel files obtained through a public records request, and reviewed by The CA, showed that four of the five criminally charged officers had been reprimanded before Nichols was beaten, and faced little-to-no consequences as they made forceful arrests with no documentation and drove recklessly to scenes. In at least two cases, officers were praised, and their actions were described by MPD colleagues as one-off events for a good employee. It is unclear if the department required records to prove those assertions.
One summary from a hearing about a domestic violence call that went undocumented credited the police officer under review for being a "top producer."
Only Tadarrius Bean had no prior reprimands.
Hemphill, who was also fired from the department but will not face criminal charges, also received prior reprimands.
Dewayne Smith, who oversaw the SCORPION Unit team that Hemphill and the five criminally charged officers were part of, also had prior reprimands. Smith also had a case he investigated dismissed after a federal judge found he illegally searched a man's car.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.
Micaela Watts is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal covering healthcare, hospitals, resource access, and anything else that pops up. She can be reached at [email protected].
Brooke Muckerman covers Shelby County Government for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at (901) 484-6225, [email protected] and followed on X @BrookeMuckerman.
John Klyce covers education and children's issues for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: New Tyre Nichols video released: What we learned from hours of footage
