Search results
Take a tour of the new, state-of-the-art, Memphis Fire Station number 5 located at 400 Adams Ave. Fleming Architecture designed station 5 with the mission to create a station that...
- 3 min
- 7.9K
- Memphis Fire
- Overview
- The videos
- Family, lawyers describe video as 'horrific'
- Biden says he was 'outraged and deeply pained'
- The charges
It took 26 minutes for a stretcher to appear at the spot where Tyre Nichols was slumped over on the ground after a Memphis police officer was first seen appearing to kick him in the face.
That was according to one of the four videos authorities released Friday night capturing the brutal assault on 29-year-old Nichols, who was pulled over during a Jan. 7 traffic stop and was dead three days later.
The footage showed four vantage points: Three videos were from officer body-worn cameras and one was from a police surveillance camera mounted on a pole. The videos depicted Nichols being punched, struck with a baton, seemingly kicked in the face and sprayed with an irritant. They also captured him crying out for his mother and saying he was trying to go home.
And they appeared to show police’s aggressive, chaotic and at times inconsistent demands of Nichols — like demanding he provide his hands while his arm was being held and he was being pulled to his feet. They also appear to show police punch him as he was being held.
“These was monsters that did this to my son,” Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, said on MSNBC Friday night.
“My son weighed 150 pounds. Each one of these officers was over 200,” Wells said. “That’s 1,000 pounds beating on my son, using him as a piñata — all this unnecessary force that was really not needed for a kid that wasn’t resisting, or just trying to get home to his parents.”
Around 6 p.m. local time, the city of Memphis released the four videos, totaling about 67 minutes. In the videos, the license plates of vehicles parked in the area are blurred, but the faces of the people involved in the encounter are not.
One video shows an officer arriving at the traffic stop, pointing his gun at the car and shouting, “You’re going to get your a-- blown the f--- out.”
The officers yell at him to lie on the ground and put his hands behind his back as he's on his side on the ground, with one arm held by one officer and the other beneath him, and held by a second officer, the video shows.
Nichols says “OK, dude, dang!” at one point, and “you guys are really doing a lot right now. ... I'm just trying to go home."
He tells officers yelling at him, “I am on the ground!” and it then appears that he is sprayed with a chemical irritant, the video shows. He is able to get up and runs, with an officer firing a Taser at him, the video shows.
More coverage on Tyre Nichols
Nichols' family was offered a private viewing of the video Monday. His mother, RowVaughn Wells, made it only through the first minute, family attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said.
While she hasn’t seen all the footage, Wells said “what I’ve heard is very horrific.
“Any of you who have children, please don’t let them see it,” she added during a news conference Friday.
The Memphis community was bracing for potential protests in response to the video release, with Memphis-Shelby County Schools canceling after-school activities Friday and Southwest Tennessee Community College moving to virtual classes Friday.
Wells called for people to protest peacefully during a candlelight vigil in Memphis’ Tobey Park on Thursday night. "I don’t want us burning up our cities, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for," she said.
There were protests in Memphis on Friday, but no reports of any violence.
After the videos were released, Biden said in a statement that he was outraged. He has called for a swift, full and transparent investigation, and spoke with Nichols' parents earlier Friday.
"Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death," Biden said. "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."
Police chiefs, public officials and mayors from across the country expressed outrage, condemned the actions of the officers and said what happened to Nichols should never have occurred.
FBI Director Christopher Wray earlier Friday said, “I’ve seen the video myself and I will tell you I was appalled.”
Five officers involved in the case — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired last week after an administrative investigation found they had violated department policy on use of force.
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters the former officers' actions resulted in Nichols' death.
Mulroy said that after an “initial altercation” when “pepper spray was deployed,” Nichols ran from the officers.
“There was another altercation at a nearby location, where serious injuries were experienced by Mr. Nichols,” Mulroy continued. “After some period of time of waiting around afterward, he was taken away by an ambulance.”
The video released Friday of the traffic stop does not show what precipitated the stop.
The fired officers were charged Thursday with second-degree murder, two counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of official oppression and one count of aggravated assault.
- 26 min
- Phil Helsel,Doha Madani,Marlene Lenthang
Sep 9, 2024 · Part one: Police bodycam footage shows traffic stop. The first video shows the initial traffic stop that led to Mr Nichols' fatal encounter with police. None of the five videos made public in the...
View The Grand Opening of Station 5.
- 14 min
- 1867
- Memphis Fire Department
Jan 27, 2023 · The Memphis Fire Department has received access today to the video of the altercation between Memphis police officers and Tyre Nichols, the department said in a Friday statement on Facebook.
Jan 28, 2023 · Video of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old man who died after a traffic stop by the SCORPION unit of the Memphis police, is set to be released Friday evening.
- 26 min
People also ask
Did Memphis Fire Department get full access to the video footage?
How many Memphis police officers were fired after a traffic stop?
What happened at a Memphis traffic stop?
What happened at 6pm in Memphis?
Did a Memphis police officer beat an inmate?
Did Memphis police release footage of Tyre Nichols assault?
Jun 25, 2020 · Fire Station 5 will be moving from it's location at 65 S Front Street to it's new home, 400 Adams. We officially broke ground this morning and are...
- 12 min
- 3.1K
- Memphis Fire Department
