It took 26 minutes for a stretcher to arrive where Tire Nichols fell to the ground after a Memphis police officer was first seen kicking him in the face.
The video of the brutal attack on Nichols, 29, who was pulled over during a Jan. 7 traffic stop and killed three days later, is one of four videos released by authorities Friday night.
The footage showed four vantage points: three videos were from officers’ body-worn cameras and one was from a police surveillance camera mounted on a pole. Videos show Nicole being punched, hit with a stick, kicked in the face and sprayed with irritants. They also caught him crying for his mother and trying to go home.
And they appeared to show police making aggressive, chaotic and sometimes inconsistent demands on Nichols — such as when he was being held by the arm and dragged by the legs. The police are also seen punching him as they arrest him.
“These were monsters that did this to my son,” Nichols’ stepfather, Rodney Wells, said Friday night on MSNBC.
“My son weighed 150 pounds. Each of these officers was over 200,” Wells said. “It’s beating my son 1,000 pounds, using him as a piñata — all this unnecessary force that really wasn’t needed for a child who wasn’t resisting, or trying to get his parents home.”
Video of the initial traffic stop shows a chaotic scene as officers hurl Nicholas from the car, yelling orders at each other and at times threatening him. Nichols is on the ground when he is sprayed in the face with what appears to be pepper spray or other goo, and he runs, the videos appear to show.
The pole camera video above shows the scene where officers apprehended Nichols at another location. As the camera view pans, the video shows Nichols on the ground. It is seen in the video that he was kicked and beaten.
The city’s top police officer, Cerelin “C.J.” Davis previously described the behavior captured on disturbing and graphic video as “disgusting, reckless and inhumane.” President Joe Biden said Friday night that he was outraged and called what was seen in the videos horrific.
Nicholas was hospitalized in critical condition after the encounter and died three days later. Details about what transpired between Nicole and the officers are sparse; Police initially said Nicholas ran during the reckless driving stop and was “confronted” in an attempt to arrest him.
Davis, however, told MSNBC on Friday that an investigation and review of available camera footage could not “confirm” the reckless driving claim.
Five Memphis police officers were fired and charged with second-degree murder and other counts. Davis said Wednesday that other officers are under investigation in connection with alleged policy violations during traffic stops. On Friday night, after the videos were released, two Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies who showed up at the scene were relieved of duty pending the outcome of the investigation.
Videos
Around 6 pm. local time, the city of Memphis released four videos, totaling 67 minutes. In the video, the license plate of the vehicle parked in the area is blurred, but the face of the person involved in the clash is not visible.
One video shows an officer arriving at a traffic stop, pointing his gun at the car and yelling, “You’re gonna fly your a– out.”
The video shows the officers laying on the ground with his hands behind his back and his sides on the floor, one arm held by one officer and the other under him, and held by a second officer.
Nichols says “Okay, man, dang!” At one point, and “You guys are really doing too much right now. … I’m trying to get home.”
He tells the officers yelling at him, “I’m on the floor!” And then she is seen being sprayed with a chemical irritant, the video shows. He is able to get up and run, before an officer shoots at him, the video shows.
Three other videos show when police caught Nicole in the neighborhood — less than 80 yards, her mother said, from her home. In one of those videos, Nicholas is seen on the ground and punched by two officers standing over him. Moments later he can be heard yelling “Mommy.”
While he’s down, one officer is seen kicking Nicholas in the head and then another beats him with a baton, the video shows. The videos do not appear to show any apparent resistance by Nichols.
As Nichols stands and is seen being held down by two officers, a third officer repeatedly punches him in the face or head, the video shows, and Nichols’ legs go out from under him and he falls.
In one video, after the beating, Nicholas is seen handcuffed and sitting on the ground, propped up against a car, as officers gather around and talk. One complains that he was also affected by a chemical irritant, and another said that his leg hurt. Less than two minutes later, the video shows Nichols falling to his side.
The first medic appeared on surveillance cameras at 8:41 p.m., though it’s unclear what assistance he offered. At one point, five minutes go by without anyone physically noticing Nicholas. He can be seen in the video walking down the street as officers talk nearby.
In one video, an officer claims they tried to stop Nichols but he didn’t stop, he “swayed like he was going to hit my car” and Nichols then stopped at his turn signal at a red light.
“So we jump out of the car,” the officer says in the video. “S— went from there.”
The family and lawyer called the video “appalling.”
Nichols’ family was offered a private viewing of the video on Monday. Her mother, Rowan Wells, barely made it through the first minute, said family attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci.
While she hasn’t seen all of the footage, Wells said, “What I’ve heard is pretty horrifying.
“Any of you who have children, please don’t let them see this,” she added at a news conference on Friday.
The Memphis community was bracing for possible protests in response to the video’s release, with Memphis-Shelby County Schools canceling after-school activities on Friday and Southwest Tennessee Community College moving to virtual classes on Friday.
Wells called for a peaceful protest Thursday night at a candlelight vigil in Tobey Park in Memphis. “I don’t want us to burn down our cities, tear up our streets, because that’s not what my son stands for,” she said.
Protests took place in Memphis on Friday, but there were no reports of violence.
Three people have been arrested in New York City after a police car was vandalized, police said. Protests were also held in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Dallas.
Romanucci described Monday’s video as an “unprovoked, innocent, nonstop beating” for three minutes. Crump has said it reminded him of the “Rodney King video,” a reference to a 1991 bystander video of a black man being beaten by Los Angeles police officers.
Nichols’ mother spoke about his heartbreak in an interview that aired on CNN Friday morning, saying that when she got to the hospital and saw Nichols after his arrest, “he was already gone.”
“They beat him in his clothes. He had scars all over, his head was swollen like a watermelon, his throat was cracked because of the swelling, his neck was broken, my son’s nose looked like an “S,” she said.
Crump said Nicholas’ last words in the video were three “gut-wrenching screams for his mother.”
Davis described the incident as “disgusting, reckless and inhumane” in a video statement Wednesday night.
“I hope that’s how the Nichols family feels,” she said. “I expect you to be outraged at the disregard for basic human rights, as our police officers have sworn to do the opposite of what happened in the video.”
Biden says he was ‘outraged and deeply hurt’
After the videos were released, Biden said in a statement that he was outraged. He has called for a swift, thorough and transparent investigation, and spoke with Nichols’ parents on Friday.
“Like many, I was outraged and deeply saddened by the horrific video of the beating that led to the death of Tyree Nichols,” Biden said. “This is another painful reminder of the deep fear and trauma, pain, and exhaustion that black and brown Americans experience every day.”
Police chiefs, public officials and mayors across the country expressed outrage, condemning the officers’ actions and saying what happened to Nicole should never have happened.
“I’ve seen the video myself and I’ll tell you I’m shocked,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday.
Charges
The five officers involved in the case — Tadarius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired last week after an administrative investigation found they violated department policy on the use of force.
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters that Nichols’ death was caused by the actions of former officers.
Mulroy said that after an “initial scuffle” when “pepper spray was deployed,” Nichols fled from officers.
“There was another altercation at a nearby location, where Mr. Nicholls was seriously injured,” Mulroy continued. “After a short wait he was taken away by an ambulance.”
Video released Friday of the traffic stop does not show what was stopped.
The fired officers were charged Thursday with second-degree murder, two counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of official harassment and one count of aggravated assault.
At a news conference Friday, Nichols’ family and attorneys praised the swift charge and investigation.
“We see that the district attorney brought charges against them in less than 20 days. So we want to announce that any time this blueprint is moving forward, any officers, whether they’re black or white, will be held accountable,” Crump said.
After posting the bail till Friday morning, all the five have been released from jail. Bean, Mills and Smith posted $250,000 bond; Haley and Martin posted $350,000 bonds.
Several attempts to reach officials for comment after the firing were unsuccessful.
After the videos were released Friday, Mills’ attorney Blake Balin said he and Mills would review them together “in due course.”
“A thorough investigation of all available angles is essential before providing a reference or comment,” Balin said. “My heart goes out to the Nichols family and the entire city of Memphis.”
Attorneys for Mills and Martin said their clients plan to plead not guilty. It was unclear whether others have retained legal representation.
The Memphis Police Association said in a statement on Facebook Friday night that it is committed to the “administration of justice” and that it will not condone any abuse of citizens.
“We believe in the criminal justice system. That belief is what we will rely on to ensure that the totality of the situation unfolds in the coming days, weeks and months,” the statement added.
Initial findings in an autopsy performed by a forensic pathologist for Nicholas’ family show he was severely beaten before he died, the family’s attorneys said. The Shelby County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released an official cause of death.
Nichols’ case is being investigated by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice, which launched a civil rights investigation into the traffic stop.
Other Tennessee agencies related to the January 7 incidents are also investigating the actions of their members.
Two Shelby County sheriff’s deputies were relieved of duty Friday night pending the outcome of the investigation, Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Jr. said.
“I am concerned about the two deputies who appeared on the scene after the physical confrontation between police and Tyree Nichols,” Bonner, who first saw the videos Friday, said in a statement.
He said, ‘An internal investigation has been started to find out what happened and whether any policy was broken and he has to remain on duty until it is concluded.
The Memphis Fire Department also said it had not received full access to the footage as of Friday.
“The department is currently reviewing the footage and will conclude our internal investigation early next week,” the fire department said.
A department spokeswoman said Monday that two Memphis Fire Department employees described as being involved in the “initial patient care” of Nichols were “relieved of duty” amid an internal investigation into her death.
Mulroy, the Shelby County district attorney, said in a statement Friday night that the release of the video was delayed so that witnesses could “first speak from their memories and nothing else.”
“My hope is that this tragedy can spark a broader conversation on police reform,” he said.