The property of Tyre Nichols Wednesday filed a criticism in opposition to the Metropolis of Memphis, its police division and the officers concerned in Nichols’ dying. In January, 5 officers carried out a site visitors cease on Nichols and brutally beat him after he ran away. Nichols died within the hospital three days later on the age of 29. The case is within the US District Court docket for the Western District of Tennessee Western Division.
The 139-page criticism asserts that the now-disbanded Memphis police unit often called the Road Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods (SCORPION) Unit “introduced terror” and was an “formally licensed gang of inexperienced, untrained, and hyper-aggressive law enforcement officials.” The officers concerned within the site visitors cease had been a part of this unit. Moreover, the criticism alleges that the Metropolis of Memphis was detached to SCORPION’s “unsupervised reign of terror.” Lastly, the criticism asserts that the officers stopped Nichols “with out authorized justification” and beat Nichols “inside an inch of his life.”
The criticism units forth 25 causes of motion, which embrace Failure to Practice, Failure to Supervise, Fourth Amendment violations, Negligent Infliction of Emotional Misery and Fraudulent Misrepresentation.
In response to the criticism, the property’s legal professional Ben Crump stated:
How does this horrific and unconstitutional remedy of Black women and men by regulation enforcement proceed to occur. Tyre’s situation within the hospital might be likened to that of Emmitt Until who was additionally crushed unrecognizable by a lynch mob. However, Tyre’s lynch mob was wearing division sweatshirts and vests, sanctioned by the entities that provided them. Please, Memphis. Please, America, we should maintain these individuals accountable and create significant change as soon as and for all. We cannot let one other seventy years go by.
The lawsuit additionally names two Memphis Hearth Division emergency medical technicians for allegedly failing to offer medical care to Nichols when it was “clearly crucial” to take action.
A Tenessee Grand Jury indicted the 5 officers concerned in Nichols’ dying in January.
