Memphis to release more video, audio in beating death of Tyre Nichols

Memphis was expected on Wednesday to release more than 20 hours of additional video and audio footage related to the killing of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man who was beaten by police officers during a traffic stop in January.

The city will make the material public sometime in the afternoon on its Vimeo page, Memphis Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Sink told a city council committee on Tuesday. The city will also release records regarding the completed administrative investigations into the killing of the 29-year-old, she said.

Sink said the new material includes 20 hours of video, but did not describe what it shows. Four shorter videos previously released by the city did not reveal what led to the Jan. 7 traffic stop or shed light on what pandemics who responded to the incident were told by officers at the scene.

The brutal treatment seen on the footage already made public transformed Tyre Nichols, described by friends as an affable skateboarder and student of photography who was also the father of a four-year-old, into the latest face of a U.S. racial justice movement galvanized by the 2020 killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday that it will conduct a review of the policies and practices of the Memphis Police Department, as well as specialized police units across the nation, like the now-disbanded SCORPION unit that included the five officers charged with murdering Tyre Nichols.

Nichols’ death led the city council to approve a series of police reforms on Tuesday, including the creation of an annual review of training techniques. Police in the city of 620,000 will also be required to collect more data, and to use only marked vehicles for routine traffic stops.

The release of the footage on Wednesday comes five weeks after the city made public graphic videos from police body-worn and dashboard cameras showing the incident. One video showed officers dragging Nichols from the driver’s seat of his car before he runs away. Another showed officers pummeling him after they catch him, even though he appeared to pose no threat.

Nichols died of his injuries three days later while hospitalized. Five officers, all Black, have been charged with second-degree murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression. They all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A total of 13 officers have come under investigation for their conduct. Seven officers were fired, three were suspended, two had charges dismissed, and one resigned in lieu of termination. Three members of Memphis Fire Department were also fired and one was suspended, Sink said on Tuesday.