There IS a difference in this one….
The five cops fired in the encounter are Black…..
Prosecutors in Memphis said they would provide an update Thursday into the investigation of five police officers who were fired last week and accused of using excessive force during a traffic stop this month. Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man who they pulled over, died in a hospital three days later. The Memphis police chief has described the encounter, which was captured on police body camera video, as “heinous, reckless and inhumane.”
Here are the details:
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Mr. Nichols was stopped by officers on suspicion of reckless driving on the evening of Jan. 7. The police, in an initial statement, said a “confrontation occurred” as the officers approached his vehicle and that Mr. Nichols ran away. There was then “another confrontation” as the officers arrested him, the department said, and an ambulance was called after Mr. Nichols complained of shortness of breath.
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Mr. Nichols “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to preliminary findings of an autopsy commissioned by his family. His family shared a photograph taken before he died on Jan. 10 that showed him in a hospital bed, apparently unconscious, his face bruised and swollen. Here is what we know about Mr. Nichols.
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The five officers, who are all Black, were fired last week after an internal investigation by the Memphis Police Department, which found that they had violated its policies on excessive use of force, duty to intervene and duty to render aid. The Memphis Fire Department has said that two of its employees who responded to the scene have also been “relieved of duty” while it conducts its own internal investigation.
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The case has provoked outrage among activists and Mr. Nichols’s family, and led federal prosecutors in Memphis to open a civil rights investigation. The police chief in Memphis, Cerelyn Davis, condemned the actions of the officers as “a failing of basic humanity,” and officials are bracing for the public release of video from the traffic stop…..
Update….
5 fired Memphis officers charged with second-degree murder of Tyre Nichols
All five suspects joined the Memphis police within the past six years. Each of them is Black, as was Nichols. They are charged with second-degree murder, “aggravated assault — acting in concert,” two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct and one count of official oppression. Additionally, the Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation into Nichols’s death.
The arrest of the ex-officers sets the stage for the impending public release Friday evening of surveillance and body-camera footage of their interaction with Nichols….