- The Memphis Police Department has disbanded the Scorpion special unit.
- Officers are accused of murdering Tyre Nichols, who was filmed being beaten to death.
- The department said “it is in the best interest of all to permanently deactivate”.
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.
This 50-person unit’s goal is to lower crime rates in specific neighborhoods.
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 Memphis Police Department must respond quickly to aid in the healing of all those affected, even though the name Scorpion has been tarnished by the heinous deeds of a select few.
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With an emphasis on high-impact crimes such car thefts and gang-related offenses, 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.
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 claimed routinely brutalizes black people in Memphis and around the nation.
One of the protest’s organizers, 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 organized crime unit, he and other community organizers would keep up pressure on Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis and municipal authorities.
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 neighborhood.”
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.
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.
On Friday, the Memphis Police Department made available four violent recordings of the traffic encounter and its immediate aftermath, totaling more than
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 program. He claimed that in order to decide where the unit would carry out its enforcement operations within the city, the city analyzed 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.
The officers, who Mr. McKinney claims were driving unmarked cars, allegedly threatened to “blow his head off,” aimed a firearm at his head, and accused him of having drugs on him.
After the event, he filed a complaint with the Memphis Police Department, but he claims he has not received a response.
An individual who claimed that one of the officers who detained Mr. Nichols had beaten him while he was a prisoner eight years earlier had already sued that officer.
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