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Memphis police on Friday night released footage showing the events leading up to the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols – depicting the moments he was stopped by police for allegedly driving erratically, showing him bolt from the car and run away, and revealing the vicious beating he received when police caught up with him, and the catastrophic subsequent lack of medical care.
Five police officers involved in the January 7 incident have been charged with second-degree murder, and fired from the force.
CJ Davis, the well-respected Memphis police chief, said she had never witnessed anything so disgusting in her policing career as the footage released on Friday.
Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing the Nichols family, said that Nichols was treated like ‘a human pinata’.
The four clips – three from body cameras, one from a surveillance camera attached to a post – have shocked and angered America.
8:25PM – THE TRAFFIC STOP
At 8:20pm Nichols, who was born in Sacramento and moved to Memphis in February 2020, was driving home on January 7 from a suburban park, where he had taken photos of the sunset.
Nichols’s car is seen being pulled over at 8:24pm in south eastern Memphis on January 7
He was driving along East Raines Road in south eastern Memphis when he encountered the police.
One officer said he was ‘cutting through traffic’.
‘So we just try to get him to stop. He don’t stop,’ an officer told his colleagues, in the body camera footage.
‘Hit the siren. Stop stop stop.
‘Then he drove around, swerved like he gonna hit my car.
‘So then I’m like – goddamn.
‘He pull up to the red light. Stop at the red light. He put his turning signal on.
‘So we jump out the car.
‘S*** went from there.’
At 8:24pm, two officers are seen confronting Nichols in the driving seat of his car, at the intersection between East Raines Road and Ross Road.
One officer orders Nichols: ‘Get the f*** out of the f****** car,’ and wrestles him out.
Nichols can he heard protesting, telling the officer: ‘Damn, I didn’t do anything. Hey, I didn’t – ‘
The officer tells him: ‘Turn your a** around.’
The officers attempt to push Nichols, father of a four-year-old son, to the ground.
Nichols can be seen objecting, but, when one officer threatens to ‘tase your a**,’ Nichols replies: ‘Alright, I’m on the ground – I’m on the ground.’
He is sitting, and the officer instructs him: ‘Lay down. Get on the f****** ground. I’m going to tase you.
‘I’m going to break your s***.’
Nichols has the Taser prodded into his left thigh, and is told: ‘B****, put your hands behind your back.’
The officers attempt to put him in handcuffs, telling him: ‘I’m going to knock your hands the f*** out.’
Nichols replies: ‘OK, you guys are doing a lot right now.’
He tells them: ‘I’m just trying to go home.’
Nichols lived with his mother, RowVaughn Wells, and stepfather Rodney Wells.
He worked for FedEx, and was a passionate skateboarder.
The officers continue trying to push him to lie down.
Nichols replies, with growing frustration: ‘I am on the ground!’
‘On your stomach!’ an officer replies.
‘I can’t breathe,’ Nichols said.
At 8:25pm, there is a commotion, and pepper spray is deployed.
‘What the f*** man?’ says one of the officers.
Nichols scrambles to his feet and runs.
One officer yells: ‘Taser, taser!’
Nichols continues running, taking his t-shirt partially off as he runs.
‘Oh s***,’ says one officer, and they both begin running after him, with pepper spray in their eyes.
At 8:26pm the officer radios for help: ‘2938, we’re at Raines and Ross. Taser was deployed.
‘Suspect is running down Ross.’
8:25PM – THE PURSUIT
The two officers do not chase Nichols for long.
Both have pepper spay in their faces – one in both eyes, the other missing his eyes but getting in his eyebrows.
The body camera footage shows the pair of them walking back to their two patrol cars at 8:27pm, with one having to guide the other, who is having trouble seeing.
He fetches water from his colleague’s patrol car, and begins pouring water into his eyes while he stands with his head tilted upwards, hands in his pockets.
The officer wearing the body camera tells him the taser shot caught Nichols.
‘One of the prongs hit the b******,’ he said.
The officer searches for his glasses, which have got knocked off in the chaos.
At 8:29pm, as they continue to catch their breath, and the officer repeatedly pours water into his colleague’s eyes, another officer drives up in an unmarked car.
The driver rolls down his window and asks: ‘Which way’d he run?’
‘That way,’ he replies, and points.
The driver switches on his sirens, floors the accelerator and roars off.
The officer proceeds to find his glasses, then wind in his taser wires, while his colleague recovers, and pours more water in his face.
At 8:31pm, a sheriff’s patrol car arrives with its lights flashing.
‘That way,’ the officer tells him.
‘Thin male, black, blue jeans and a plaid jacket.’
The sheriff drives off at speed, with his sirens blaring.
At 8:32pm, the officer announces to his colleague: ‘They found him.’
8:33PM – THE CAPTURE
His colleague, not hearing, says at 8:33pm: ‘They got him.’
The body camera officer tells his colleague: ‘Martin and all them are over there chasing him.’
He appears to be referencing Emmitt Martin III, one of the five indicted officers.
His colleague exclaims: ‘I sprayed myself.’
‘You sprayed me too! Luckily it didn’t get in my eyes, just on my eyebrow.’
He adds: ‘I hope they stomp his a**. I hope they stomp his a**. Smith has called for other cars because him and Martin are chasing him.’
Smith would appear to be Justin Smith, another of the five.
At 8:34pm, the officer decides his eyes have recovered sufficiently, and puts his body armor back on.
‘Are you sure?’ his colleague asks.
He gets into the driving seat, telling the bodycam wearer: ‘Stay right with the car.’
‘OK, I gotcha,’ he replies, and at 8:34pm the officer drivers away to catch up with Nichols.
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One minute before, at 8:33pm, other officers tell the Memphis Police dispatch that they are catching up with Nichols
‘2930 we can see him. We’re on foot pursuit southbound on Ross and Castlegate Lane,’ says one officer, as heard on the body camera footage.
As he comes round the corner, behind a parked car, two officers can be seen kneeling over Nichols, who appears to be on the floor.
‘I didn’t do anything!’ Nichols yells.
The officer tells him: ‘Shut the f*** up. Give me your hands.’
The body camera officer says: ‘You wanna get sprayed again?’
8:33PM – PEPPER SPRAYED
Nichols is on the floor, with at least three officers now pinning him down.
At the mention of the pepper spray, one officer exclaims: ‘Woah, woah, woah!’
Nichols screams as pepper spray gets in his eyes, and writhes, trying to get away.
One officer pushes him onto his back, yelling: ‘Get on your knees.’
Nichols is lying on his side, and yells: ‘Mom!’
The home he shares with his mother is nearby.
‘Give me your hands. Give me your f****** hands,’ the officer commands, and Nichols replies: ‘Alright, alright.’
Another officer runs into sight, and someone says: ‘Watch out. Spray’
Pepper spray is deployed again, getting into the face of at least one officer.
‘Ah, s***,’ he says, walking away. ‘Ah, s***.’
The other officers can be heard yelling at Nichols to give them his hands. Nichols yells for his mother.
8:34PM – THE BEATING BEGINS
Two officers are now trying to get Nichols’ hands behind his back.
Nichols tries to push himself up on his right arm, leaning on his right side.
A third officer walks over, and, pausing to get full force, brings his right leg back and kicks him in the top half of his body.
Nichols is now lying on his back.
The officer who kicked moves to the top of Nichols’s body, and again kicks him with his right leg, this time in the head.
8:34PM – BATON DRAWN
At 8:34pm, an officer commands: ‘Give me your hands! Turn around! Lay back!’
The officer with the body camera returns to the tussling men and Nichols, and pulls his baton out of its holder, clasping it in his right hand.
‘Watch out – I’m going to baton the f*** out of you,’ he tells Nichols.
8:35PM – SIX SUCKER PUNCHES
Blows begin raining down on Nichols.
A fourth officer is now seen arriving, with his right arm raised.
Nichols is still pinned to the floor by three officers, struggling and kicking.
The officer with the raised arm careful, deliberately and powerfully punches Nichols in the head, taking his time to get enough force.
At 8:35pm, Nichols is punched by the same officer a second time, and then dragged to his feet.
He appears unable to stand, and is wobbling around.
Officers are holding his wrists behind his back.
An officer then takes a huge swing, and punches him, while he is held up, arms behind his back.
Nichols is reeling – he is still on his feet, but unsteady, and being held by the officers.
The officers punch him again, in the stomach – then the same officer punches him a second and third time.
He has now been punched six times.
Nichols slumps to the floor – his right leg outstretched, left leg bent at the knee.
Three officers are on him now; he appears to be kneeling.
At 8:36pm, another officer runs into view.
He kicks Nichols in the ribs – a third kick, to go with the six sucker punches.
8:38PM – LEFT TO HIS FATE
The officers then seem to lose interest in Nichols.
He is handcuffed, and at 8:38pm is dragged to sit up against the patrol car, his legs straight ahead of him.
Shattered, Nichols is unable to sit.
He writhes and twitches, but the officers are uninterested.
They seem pleased with themselves.
At 8:39pm, two of the officers fist-bump each other, by the hood of the patrol car.
At 8:40pm, a different set of officers with exchange a congratulatory fist-bump.
As Nichols thrashes around – at times on the floor, at times propped up, writhing and flailing his legs – they ignore him.
They are more concerned with locating their missing equipment lost during the tussle.
‘What the f*** is wrong with my radio, man?’ asks one, at 8:41pm.
‘You seen my flashlight?’ another asks at 8:46pm.
The officers – there are by now at least a dozen on the scene – seem relaxed.
At 8:49pm, one lights a cigarette.
A few minutes later, still milling around, they stop to exchange stories, and laugh.
At 8:52pm a group of around four are seen in animated, chuckling conversation.
They excitedly recap the incident, with one telling his colleague: ‘You was running. You looking like Stevie Wonder, man.’
Nichols can occasionally be heard moaning in the background, when one of the officers passes by.
Two EMTs appear to be standing by, with bags of equipment, but chat among themselves, paying little attention to him.
The officers dismiss Nichols, repeatedly, as ‘high as a kite’.
The EMTs do not seem concerned with investigating further.
9PM – AMBULANCE ARRIVES
Twenty four agonizing minutes after the police beating stopped, an ambulance finally arrives at 9pm precisely.
It is not clear why it took almost half an hour for medical aid to arrive.
Nichols is put on a stretcher and taken to hospital.
He will die three days later.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
