Attorneys for Tyre Nichols' family seek dissolution of US city’s police unit

By Darren Lyn

HOUSTON, United States (AA) - The attorney for Tyre Nichols' family pleaded Friday to disband the Memphis Police Department's (MPD) SCORPION unit in which five former officers allegedly beat Nichols to death during a traffic stop in the US state of Tennessee.

In a letter released by lawyer Ben Crump, he said the SCORPION unit, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods, should not have been conducting traffic stops.

"Officers tend to focus on Black and Brown members of the community," said Crump. "These often aggressive encounters flat out destruct trust between police and the communities they are sworn to protect and serve, but as we saw in the tragic and unnecessary death of Tyre Nichols, can also lead to physical injury or death."

The former officers -- Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith -- were each charged with second-degree murder along with several other counts.

Video of the Jan. 7 beating, which the family has seen, is set to be released by the MPD late Friday. Nichols, 29, died three days later from injuries Jan. 10.

"To the five officers that killed my son … I'm praying for you and your family. This shouldn't have happened," said Nichols' mother, RowVaughn Wells at a news conference. "We want justice for my son. I'm still dealing with the death of my son. No mother should go through what I went through the violent way I lost my son."

Crump said the official cause for Nichols' encounter with police was a traffic stop, which he emphasized was "far outside the unit’s stated purpose of stemming violent crime."

"The 'why' of Tyre Nichols's death is found in this policing culture itself, not something Tyre personally did," Crump said in the letter. "And his running in fear for his life in-between a series of beatings was an affront to the officers, who wanted to show Tyre and the city of Memphis that as a team they can take anyone down. No one escapes the Scorpions."

Crump pointed out that Memphis is not the only city that is going through this problem with its police department, mentioning other cities like Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C. have similar units that "cause terror in minority communities."

"Together we are calling for national change in this type of policing," Crump wrote, asking that the Justice Department begin an investigation into cities that use similar tactics in their police departments.

"We insist on reform, transparency, and better oversight of these 'saturation' units, or for their removal as a tactic in American policing," said Crump. "Our communities will be far better for it."