After viewing a fatal beating video, the US city of Memphis disbands a special police squad.

 

After gruesome video of the assault shocked and outraged the world, the US city of Memphis disbanded the special police unit whose members fatally beat a young Black guy on Saturday.

Tyre Nichols, 29, is repeatedly kicked and punched by five officers as he cries out for his mother in the video, which has caused outrage and calls for police reform.

The southern US city revealed on Saturday that it had disbanded the Scorpion team, a specialised police force created in 2021 to combat crime by deploying more officers in high-risk areas.

Scorpion Unit, also known as the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods Unit, was permanently deactivated because it was "in the best interest of all parties involved," according to a statement from the Memphis Police Department.

The agency continued, "The officers now assigned to the unit agree without reservation with this next move."

On Saturday afternoon, several dozen protesters gathered in front of city hall in the pouring rain and chanted "No justice, no peace!" while holding banners that said, "Justice for Tyre Nichols."

At one point, a group of demonstrators surrounded a police car, yelling obscenities at it as they did so.

JB Smiley Jr., a member of the Memphis City Council, spoke to the gathering while it was raining and addressed their demands.

He said to them, "Memphis has a chance to set the standard on how to respond to incidents like this.

An awful thing

In connection with the beating of Nichols, who passed away in the hospital on January 10 three days after being arrested on suspicion of driving recklessly, the five Black Memphis police officers were charged with second-degree murder.

The cops hold Nichols, try to subdue him with a Taser, and then pursue him as he flees in the extensive video footage from police body cameras that was made public on Friday night.

The video continues with Nichols yelling for his mother and moaning as the officers continue to beat him up; the entire clip lasts almost an hour.

Nicholas's mother RowVaughn Wells told CNN on Friday, "They had beaten him to a pulp." "He was covered with bruises. Like a watermelon, his skull was bloated. His neck was swollen to the point of breaking.

According to the website Mapping Police Violence, despite widespread calls for police reform in the wake of George Floyd's death and accompanying demonstrations in 2020, the number of persons killed in police contacts reached a 10-year high in 2022 with 1,186 fatalities.

After seeing the disturbing video, Nancy Schulte, 69, who works at a hotel in the heart of Memphis, claimed she no longer had faith in the local police.

Schulte declared, "It's just a dreadful thing. Watching five powerful men beat this man to death.

Some important concerns, primarily the reason why Nichols was stopped, remained unresolved even after the video's distribution.

Benjamin Crump, the family's attorney, argued that Nichols did not violate traffic laws or approach the officers' firearms as the police claim, and accused the policemen of trying to cover up their mistakes.

"Police culture is institutionalised violence. It makes no difference if the police are White, Black, or Hispanic, he declared on MSNBC on Saturday morning.

There are unspoken standards that allow for the use of extreme force against someone if they belong to a certain ethnic group.

The Scorpion unit's dissolution was deemed a "appropriate and proportional" response to Nichols' passing by his family.

The family's attorneys said in a statement on Saturday that "we must remember that this is simply the next step on this journey for justice and responsibility, as clearly this misbehaviour is not isolated to these speciality units."

It stretches out so much farther.

Same old, Same Old Protests were tiny and fairly peaceful on Friday evening after the video was posted in Memphis, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and a few other places.

There are unwritten norms and even insinuation that say you can use extreme force against someone because of their ethnicity.

The Scorpion unit's dissolution was deemed a "acceptable and proportionate" response by Nichols' family to their relative's passing.

As it is obvious that this misbehaviour is not limited to these speciality units, the family's attorneys stated in a statement on Saturday that this is simply the next step in the quest for justice and accountability.

It goes on for a very long way.

The demonstrations that took place on Friday night after the release of the video were modest and fairly peaceful in Memphis, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and a few other places.

The so-called Scorpion special squad of the Memphis Police Department has been disbanded because one of its members is suspected of killing Tyre Nichols.

"Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods" is what Scorpion stands for.

The unit is a 50-person group tasked with reducing crime rates in specific locations.

However, it has now been abolished when Mr. Nichols, 29, was seen being beaten by its officers in footage from 7 January.

The unit should be permanently deactivated, according to a statement from the department.

The statement went on to say that "although the horrible acts of a few throw a veil of dishonour on the title Scorpion, it is vital that we, the Memphis Police Department, take proactive steps in the healing process for all impacted."

Tyre Nichols died tragically, therefore the judgement was "both reasonable and proportionate to the tragic death of Tyre Nichols, and also a decent and just decision for all people of Memphis," according to a statement from Mr. Nichols' family's attorneys.

Unanswered queries from the recordings of Tyre Nichols' arrest

What exactly is a "Scorpion" unit?

Black Americans experience difficulties with the "triggering" Nichols video

With an emphasis on high-impact crimes such car thefts and gang-related offences, the unit was established in October 2021.

The five cops, Justin Smith, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Tadarrius Bean, and Emmitt Martin III, were discharged last week.

Each of them is accused of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression. They were both arrested on Thursday.

According to jail records, four of the five secured bond and were freed from custody by Friday morning.

Martin and Mills' attorneys have declared that their clients will enter a not-guilty plea.

Two deputy sheriffs who "came on the scene following" the altercation, according to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr., have also been placed on administrative leave awaiting an internal investigation.

In Memphis, a demonstrator shouted through a megaphone, "The unit that killed Tyre has been permanently disbanded," and the audience cheered.

Less than 100 protesters had assembled in the square in front of the Memphis Police headquarters despite the rain to call for change to a policing system that they claim frequently brutalises black people in Memphis and elsewhere.

One of the protest's organisers, Casio Montez, said, "Memphis is taking a stance." "This proves we're on the right track,"

Mr. Montez said that unless "the community's demands are satisfied," including restructuring the department's organised crime unit, he and other community organisers would keep up pressure on Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis and municipal authorities.

Casio Montez, a protest organiser, marches in Memphis while wearing blue.

picture caption

Casio Montez, a protest organiser, marches in Memphis while wearing blue.

Chief Davis stated that the Scorpion team was established to be "more responsive" and "more proactive" to gun violence in the city in an interview with BBC News on Friday. She did, however, admit that the officers responsible for Tyre Nichols' violent beating "decided to go off the rails."

She explained, "We are evaluating each unit separately. "This action is required. We want to be very open and honest with the neighbourhood."

However, for some, the issue of police brutality is deeper entrenched than any change can resolve.

Allie Watkins, a Memphis local, carried a sign that read, "All cops uphold white supremacy," at the march on Saturday.

She said that the sign is historically accurate because slave patrols were used at the beginning of American policing history.

The system has been set up to discriminate against black bodies, she continued, not that there is corruption in the United States. She continued by saying that if the system is flawed, the only solution is to start over.

Gloria Browne-Marshall, a professor of constitutional law at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the BBC, "We need to have national criminal justice reform. She claimed that because organisations similar to the Scorpion squad are spread "around the country," piecemeal change was not the answer.

Police initially said Mr. Nichols had been pulled over on the basis of a reckless driving suspect, but this claim has now been refuted. Three days later, on January 10, he passed away in the hospital.

Both Mr. Nichols and the five cops accused in the case are black.

The Memphis Police Department released four violent recordings, totaling more than an hour of film, showing the traffic stop and its violent aftermath on Friday.

Three days after his encounter with police at a traffic stop, Mr. Nichols passed away.

Following the broadcast of the video, peaceful protests occurred in Memphis on Friday night, with some protesters blocking one of the city's main thoroughfares. Smaller-scale protests also took place in other parts of the nation.

Numerous demonstrators carried signs calling for Mr. Nichols' justice and an end to "police terror."

Attorneys for Mr. Nichols' family compared the assault to the beating by Los Angeles police in 1991 of motorist Rodney King.

Jim Strickland, the mayor of Memphis, made a statement a year ago in which he praised the Scorpion programme. He claimed that in order to decide where the unit would carry out its enforcement operations within the city, the city analysed crime data.

He said that between October 2021 and January 2022, the squad conducted 566 arrests. Additionally, they seized 253 guns, 270 vehicles, and more than $100,000 in cash.

One local resident, Cornell McKinney, told a Memphis-area TV network after Mr. Nichols' murder that he had a difficult interaction with the unit on January 3, only days before the incident involving Mr. Nichols.

According to Mr. McKinney, the officers, who were driving unmarked cars, threatened to "blow his head off," brandished a weapon at his head, and said he was carrying drugs.

After the event, he complained to the Memphis Police Department, but he claims he has not heard anything back.

One of the officers involved in Mr. Nichols' detention had previously been sued by a guy who claimed the officer had beaten him while the man was a prisoner eight years prior.