The recordings released Tuesday add hours of context to the police video released weeks after the traffic stop, which showed the five officers beating Nichols as he yelled for his mother, steps from his house. The new material shows what officers and others did and said before, during and after the beating.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — About 21 hours of newly released video and audio are revealing more about what first responders including the five fired police officers charged in
Wells then tried repeatedly to learn where her son was, but the lieutenant was evasive, saying he is “with the paramedics” and “they got him a little ways from here” and “he’s in the neighborhood.” Finally he told her, “He’s going to go to jail after he gets some medical treatment.”
As they walked away, Mills told the lieutenant he believed the parents “know more than what they are saying” and seemed suspicious because they didn’t open their screen door. Then he said, “I just hope … he just needs to make it, that’s all. He needs to make it. He ain’t looking too good.”
Dewayne Smith, who is not facing criminal charges, retired before police would have fired him.
About an hour after officers pulled Nichols from his car, a woman saying she was Nichols’ mother showed up, along with another man, at the intersection of the initial traffic stop and started asking Officer Preston Hemphill what happened.
When Hemphill said Nichols fought with officers, the mother sounded incredulous.
“My son? Not Tyre,” she said, later adding, “That don’t sound like my son. I’m sorry, sir.”
Hemphill fired his stun gun during the traffic stop but didn’t follow Nichols to where other officers pummeled him. Hemphill was fired but isn’t facing criminal charges.
Attorneys for Nichols’ family said they are reviewing the additional video, but expect it will “affirm what we have said from day one: that there was absolutely no justification for the officers’ brutal and inhumane actions.”
“We will continue our unflinching look at this tragedy and stand strongly with Tyre’s family in their continued grief and fight for justice,” attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said in a news release.
The Associated Press requested comments from attorneys for the former officers facing charges. Attorneys for Mills and Justin Smith declined to comment.
Nichols died in a hospital Jan. 10, 2023 three days after he was kicked, punched and hit with a police baton.
Nichols was Black. The five officers also are Black. The four who remain charged face federal trial in May and state court trial in August.
Following the January 2023 release of police body camera and pole camera footage, the city had planned to release about 20 more hours of video, audio and documents including the officers’ personnel files, but the judge granted the defense’s motion for a delay “until such time as the state and the defendants have reviewed this information.”
A coalition of media organizations, including The Associated Press, cited the First Amendment in pressing to have them made public. Lawyers for the former officers argued that their rights to a fair trial must be recognized and protected.
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a “patterns and practices” investigation into how Memphis Police Department officers use force and conduct arrests, and whether the department in the majority-Black city engages in racially discriminatory policing.
In March, the Justice Department announced a separate review concerning use of force, de-escalation strategies and specialized units in the Memphis Police Department. Also, Nichols’ mother has sued the city and its police chief over her son’s death.
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