Memphis disbands police unit after fatal beating as US protesters take to streets

MEMPHIS, Tennessee - The specialised police unit that included the five Memphis officers charged with the

fatal beating of Mr Tyre Nichols

was disbanded on Saturday as more protests took place in US cities a day after harrowing video footage of the attack was released.

The police department said in a statement that it was permanently deactivating the Scorpion unit after the police chief spoke to members of Mr Nichols’ family, community leaders and other officers. A police spokesman confirmed all five officers were members of the unit.

Video recordings from police body-worn cameras and a camera mounted on a utility pole showed Mr Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, repeatedly screaming “Mum!” as officers kicked, punched and struck him with a baton in his mother’s neighbourhood after a Jan 7 traffic stop. He was hospitalised and died of his injuries three days later.

Five officers involved in the beating, all black, were

charged on Thursday with murder, assault, kidnapping and other charges.

All have been dismissed from the department.

Mr Nichols’ family and officials expressed outrage and sorrow but urged protesters to remain peaceful.

That request was largely heeded on Friday when scattered protests broke out in Memphis – where marchers briefly blocked an interstate highway – and elsewhere.

Several cities saw renewed demonstrations on Saturday. In Memphis, protesters chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” angrily catcalled a police car that was monitoring the march, with several making obscene gestures. Some cheered loudly when they learnt of the disbandment of Scorpion.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in New York’s Washington Square Park before marching through downtown Manhattan, as columns of police officers walked alongside them.

“I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. 

“It is yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that black and brown Americans experience every single day.”

Lawyers for the Nichols family said police used a stun gun and pepper spray and physically restrained Mr Nichols, and that they had treated him like a “human pinata”. 

Taken together, the four video clips released on Friday showed police pummelling Mr Nichols even though he appeared to pose no threat. The initial traffic stop was for reckless driving, though the police chief has said the cause for the stop has not been substantiated.

Scorpion, short for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighbourhoods, had been formed in October 2021 to concentrate on crime hot spots. Critics say such specialised teams can be prone to abusive tactics.

Friends and family say Mr Nichols was an affable, talented skateboarder who grew up in Sacramento, California, and moved to Memphis before the coronavirus pandemic. The father of a four-year-old child, Mr Nichols worked at FedEx and had recently enrolled in a photography class.

Mr Nate Spates Jr, 42, was part of a circle of friends, including Mr Nichols, who met up at a local Starbucks.

“He liked what he liked, and he marched to the beat of his own drum,” Mr Spates said, remembering that Mr Nichols would go to a park called Shelby Farms to watch the sunset when he was not working a late shift.

Mr Nichols’ death is the latest high-profile example of police using excessive force against black people and other minorities.

The 2020 murder of Mr George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes, galvanised worldwide protests over racial injustice.

In a statement released ahead of the Memphis video’s distribution, National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People president Derrick Johnson urged Congress to pass police reform legislation. 

“We can name all the victims of police violence, but we can’t name a single law you have passed to address it.” REUTERS, BLOOMBERG