‘BLATANTLY UNPROFESSIONAL’

Tyre Nichols Was Never Told Why He Was Being Pulled Over by Unmarked Cops

None of the five officers’ body-cams were on, and one of them later claimed—falsely—that Nichols had tried to grab his gun during the fatal encounter.

The five Memphis officers fired and charged for their involvement in the initial traffic stop and subsequent beating of Tyre Nichols were put on blast in documents compiled by the police department and submitted to state authorities as part of a decertification process. Among the litany of errors highlighted, none of the officers told Nichols why he was being stopped when they approached him at night in an unmarked car and barked at him to get out of his car. (Their subsequent claim that he was driving recklessly has not been substantiated.) All five cops either disabled, removed or didn’t turn on their body-cams, the documents say. The PD called officers “blatantly unprofessional,” singling out Demetrius Haley for not only beating Nichols, but photographing his lifeless body and texting it to five people. Officer Emmitt Martin III was also accused of falsifying his police report to say Nichols tried to snatch his gun during a struggle—a claim not backed up by video.