Officers convicted of witness tampering but cleared of higher charges, in incident that prompted nationwide protests.
Three former police officers have been convicted on federal charges related to the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee — an incident in 2023 that sparked nationwide protests and calls for law enforcement reform.
All three were found guilty of witness tampering when the verdict was delivered on Thursday. But they were cleared of the most severe charge: violating the 29-year-old Nichols’s civil rights by causing death.
One officer, Demetrius Haley, was nevertheless convicted of violating Nichols’s civil rights causing bodily injury, as well as witness tampering.
Federal witness tampering charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is anticipated to take place in January.
“A win is a win. They’re all going to jail,” Rodney Wells, Nichols’s stepfather, told The Associated Press news agency outside of the courthouse.
Haley and the two other ex-officers — Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith — were among the five members of a special police unit accused of beating Nichols to death on January 7, 2023.
The beating was captured on police body camera footage and video from a nearby street-pole camera, and the images have since gone viral.
They show Nichols fleeing a traffic stop, after being pepper-sprayed and tasered. He ran towards his mother’s house, but police caught up to him first, pulling him to the ground, where he was then punched, kicked and beaten with a baton.
Nichols was heard to call out for his mother during the beating.
He died three days later, with an autopsy showing he died from repeated blows to the head.
Prosecutors have argued the incident was part of a pattern of violence for the police unit, known as SCORPION, an acronym for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods”.
They allege the SCORPION unit would beat suspects who fled, referring to the beatings as a “street tax” or “run tax”.
In the Nichols case, prosecutors also accused the officers of concealing the extent of the beating from their superiors and medical professionals.
Throughout the trial, jurors were repeatedly shown graphic clips from the body camera footage. The video also showed the officers standing around as Nichols struggled with his injuries.
The defence, however, argued that the situation had been potentially dangerous – and the officers had therefore not used “unreasonable force”.
Officers testify
The death of Nichols, a Black man, led to nationwide calls for police reform. Advocates also demanded that the officers involved, who were also Black, be held legally accountable.
Two of the officers, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr, pleaded guilty ahead of the trial to federal charges related to using excessive force and witness tampering. They ultimately testified against their colleagues Haley, Bean and Smith during their trial.
Mills broke down in tears on the witness stand, saying he was sorry for the beating and acknowledging that he left Nichols’s young son fatherless. He added that he wished he had stopped the pummelling.
Later, Mills said that he went along with a cover-up in the hope that Nichols would survive and the incident would “blow over”.
Martin testified that Nichols was “helpless” as he was being beaten. After the beating, he explained there was an understanding between the officers that “they weren’t going to tell on me, and I wasn’t going to tell on them”.
In response, the defence accused Martin of being one of the main aggressors in the attack.
The five officers have also been charged with second-degree murder in Tennessee state court, although that trial has not yet begun.