The U.S. Department of Justice has obtained an indictment against five now-former Memphis police officers, according to a criminal docket report filed Tuesday.
The indictment charges the same five officers who were criminally charged in a state case with four counts.
The former officers — Emmitt Martin, Tadarrius Bean, Desmond Mills, Justin Smith and Demetrius Haley — face one count of excessive force and failure to intervene under the color of law, one count of deliberate indifference under the color of law, one count of conspiracy to witness tamper and obstruction of justice through witness tampering in federal court.
The DOJ announced earlier that it will host a press conference at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Tyre Nichols was pulled over for reckless driving in the evening hours of Jan. 7, though police have gone on to say there was no evidence to support he was driving recklessly. In body camera footage, officers could be seen yelling conflicting commands at him and pulling him from his car and to the ground.
Officers then began to hold him down and pepper spray him, with another officer — Preston Hemphill — holding a taser to Nichols’s body.
At some point, Nichols jumped up and ran away. Less than 100 yards from his mother’s home, additional police caught up to him and tackled him to the ground. Over the following minutes, officers would hold Nichols while punching, kicking, pepper spraying and hitting him with a baton.
Nichols was taken to the hospital in critical condition, where he died three days later due to blunt-force trauma to his head.
Seven officers were fired in the aftermath — Hemphill, Dewayne Smith, Haley, Bean, Martin, Smith and Mills. The latter five face criminal charges, including second-degree murder.
That case is currently making its way through Shelby County Criminal Court and is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagerman. Attorneys, and the charged officers, are set to be in court Friday afternoon to argue if each officer is going to be tried separately. The DA’s office will argue to try the cases as one, citing equal criminal culpability for all the officers present at the beating and some defense attorneys are arguing that each officer’s involvement is slightly different.
At the same time that case is being litigated, a civil lawsuit from the Nichols family’s attorneys, including renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump, has had a flurry of motions being filed. The lawsuit asks for $550 million in damages, with Crump saying at an April press conference the goal is to “make it financially unsustainable for these police oppression units to unjustly kill Black people in the future.”
The civil suit cites many levels of negligence and claims that the Memphis Police Department, and City of Memphis, should have known that a unit like the one the seven fired officers were part of — the since disbanded SCORPIOIN Unit — would result in constitutional violations.
The City of Memphis, along with MPD and MPD Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, have since filed motions to have the case dismissed, saying that the department does not have unconstitutional policies. The city, MPD, Davis and the seven fired officers are all part of the civil lawsuit.
Also named in the lawsuit are three former Memphis Fire Department personnel who responded to the scene to provide medical attention to Nichols.
In late July this year, the DOJ announced a pattern or practice investigation was opened up into MPD. The investigation will look to see if the department engages in a pattern of excessive force, race-based policing and violations of the constitution’s right against illegal searches.
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: 5 ex-Memphis police officers indicted in federal court