MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The family of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old man who died after video showed him being beaten by Memphis police, filed a $500 million federal lawsuit Wednesday over his death.
The suit — which names the City of Memphis, Police Chief Cerelyn Davis, the five police officers charged with murder in Nichols’ death, two other police officers and three Memphis Fire Department officials — accused authorities of violating Nichols’ constitutional rights by stopping him without reason on the night of Jan. 7, using excessive force and failing to get him medical help after he was beaten.
“The City of Memphis, the individual officers and the paramedics (were) all in some sort of explicit or implicit conspiracy to let this man die,” Nichols family attorney Antonio Romanucci said at a news conference Wednesday. “They killed him, and they let him die. Nobody cared about him.”
Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said Wednesday that the lawsuit was about getting accountability for her son.
“Things need to change,” she said.
Video released by police in January showed officers beating Nichols for at least two minutes with a baton, fists and feet before they propped him up against a police car and left him for about 20 minutes without medical care. Nichols died of his injuries at a hospital three days later, authorities said.
Initial reports indicated that officers had stopped Nichols on suspicion of reckless driving, though Davis said authorities were unable to find evidence to support that allegation.
Authorities said the officers who initiated the traffic stop and beat Nichols were part of the Memphis Police Department’s since-disbanded Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, or SCORPION, unit. Attorneys on Wednesday accused Davis of encouraging officers, especially SCORPION unit officers, “to disregard and violate the Constitutional and Fourth Amendment rights of Memphis citizens to attempt to ‘stop crime’ at any cost,” leading to the decision to stop Nichols and his eventual death.
Attorneys also said the city failed to train SCORPION unit officers on the proper use of force and failed to properly supervise the unit.
On Wednesday, Nichols family attorney Ben Crump said the family’s lawsuit aims to send a message to other cities that still operate specialized police units.
“It is our mission to make it financially unsustainable for these police oppression units to unjustly kill Black people in the future,” he said. “We want to make it where they can’t even afford it. Where they’re going to train their officers differently, where they’re going to get rid of these units because they’re going to say, ‘We don’t want what happened in Memphis, Tennessee, with Tyre Nichols to happen to my city.’”
Five officers who were part of the SCORPION unit have since been fired and charged with murder in Nichols’ death. Tadarrius Bean, 24; Demetrius Haley, 30; Emmitt Martin III, 30; Desmond Mills, 32; and Justin Smith, 28; pleaded not guilty to charges in February. Several other law enforcement officers have also been suspended or fired.
Nichols’ death prompted the Justice Department to announce plans to review the police department’s policies and procedures. A federal investigation into the incident remains ongoing.
