A jury in the United States acquitted three former police officers in the controversial death of the death of TireA 29 -year -old father who was killed after stopping traffic in Memphis, Tennessee.
On Wednesday, former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith were declared not guilty in a state level case which included accusations of second degree murder, serious assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
It was their second criminal trial, after also faced federal accusations for the death of Nichols.
In this case, the three police officers were also acquitted the most serious accusations they were faced with, although they were found guilty of falsification for having pretended to conceal the blows.
There were five police officers in total involved in the murder of Nichols, which took place on January 7, 2023. While the video of the blows spread online, the death of Nichols rekindled the debate on the violence of the police and the overexploitation of the black communities.
In the wake of the Verdict, the Memphis district prosecutor Steve Mulroy told journalists that Nichols’ family was “devastated” and “indiglée”.
“We can understand why they would be indignant, given the evidence,” said Mulroy.
“I was surprised that there was not a single guilt verdict on any of the chefs or one of the least included offenses, given the overwhelming proof that we presented? Yes, I was surprised,” he added. “Do I have an explanation for this? No.”
The five police officers involved in the blows were members of the scorpion unit of the Memphis police department, a team now disappeared who focused on alleged crime hotspots in the city. The outcry after the death of Nichols led to its dissolution.
On the day of his murder, Nichols was arrested for having allegedly conducted in a reckless manner, although the prosecutors have questioned this reason, stressing that the police of the police show no evidence of reprehensible acts.
The police pulled nichols from his car and tank him while he was on the ground. Nichols then tried to flee. He fell into a residential area not far from the place where his mother lived, where the five police officers fought him on the ground and started kicking, hitting him and beat him with a stick.
The cameras captured Nichols shouting to his mother to get help. He died three days later at the hospital. An autopsy identified his cause of death as a safe trauma in the head.
Two of the police officers involved – Desmond Mills Jr and Emmitt Martin – had avoided the trial by concluding agreements with federal prosecutors in exchange for guilt. The two would also have concluded advocacy agreements linked to state accusations.
Wednesday’s verdict was the culmination of a nine -day trial for the other three officers.
The defense team for the three sought to transfer the blame to other officers for most of the violence. He also accused Nichols of having resisted the arrest and of not complying with the police orders, leaving the police frightened for their safety.
“It is the fact of Emmitt Martin and Tire Nichols,” said Martin Zummach, defense lawyer for Smith, one of the three officers.
Zummach also alleged that credit and debit cards not belonging to Nichols had been found in his car after his blows. This, he told the jury, could explain Nichol’s decision to flee the premises.
But the prosecutors in the case argued that Nichols fled fear for his life. They also said that the police were responsible for stopping the blows, which had caused tears and bleeding in Nichols’ brain.
A video of the blows was also shown at the jury from different angles, while the prosecutors tried to transmit the violence of the last moments of Nichols.
The trial, which experienced seven days of hearings and two days of deliberations of the jury, took place in the county of Hamilton, a majority white area in Tennessee. A judge had previously ordered that the judicide procedure was distant from the county of Shelby, where Memphis is located, to fear that public control can biaise the jury.
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represented the Nichols family, published a statement after Wednesday’s decision denouncing the result.
“Today’s verdicts are a devastating miscarriage of justice,” the statement said. “The world watched Tire Nichols was beaten to death by jurors to protect and serve.”
