Three former Memphis police officers were convicted Thursday in the 2023 fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, but were acquitted of the harshest charges they faced for a death that sparked national protests and calls for broad changes in policing.
Jurors deliberated for about six hours before coming back with a mixed verdict for Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith.
All were convicted of witness tampering related to the cover-up of the beating, but Bean and Smith were acquitted of civil rights charges. Haley was acquitted of violating Nichols’s civil rights causing death, but convicted of the lesser charge of violating his civil rights causing bodily injury. He was also convicted of a conspiracy to witness tamper charge that the others were acquitted of.
The court remained silent as the verdicts were being read.
The judge ordered the officers to be taken into custody, but he planned to hold a hearing Monday to hear from the defence lawyers about releasing them pending sentencing.
The witness tampering charges carry possible sentences of up to 20 years in prison. The civil rights charge against Haley carries up to 10 years in prison. They had faced up to life in prison if convicted on the harshest charges.
Rodney Wells, Nichols’s stepfather, told The Associated Press outside the courtroom: “A win is a win. They’re all going to jail.”
Jurors watched video of beating
The verdict marked a partial setback for prosecutors who were unable to land a conviction for civil rights violations for two officers who played an active role in the encounter. Jurors repeatedly watched graphic clips from police video that showed the officers punch and kick Nichols and hit him with a police baton just steps from his home, as the 29-year-old called out for his mother.
Bean and Smith were seen on video wrestling with Nichols and holding his arms, while also hitting him, but the jury was not convinced those actions amounted to civil rights violations.
An FBI agent said Smith told him he punched Nichols, but defence lawyers argued Bean and Smith were merely slapping Nichols’s hands away as they tried to put handcuffs on him.
Five officers were charged in Nichols’s death, but two pleaded guilty and testified against members of their old crime suppression unit.
Prosecutors argued that Nichols was beaten for running from a traffic stop, saying it was part of a common police practice referred to in officer slang a “street tax” or a run tax.”
They said the officers lied — to a supervisor, to medical professionals attending to Nichols and in required written reports — about the extent of the force they used.
“This has been a long journey for our family,” RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’s mother, told reporters.
“I’m actually in shock right now because I still can’t believe all the stuff that’s going on. But we’re happy that they all have been convicted and they have been arrested.”
Lawyers for Bean, Smith and Haley did not respond to requests for comment sent by phone, text and email after the verdict.
Nichols, who was Black, ran from the traffic stop despite being hit with pepper spray and a Taser. The five officers, who were fired after the beating, also are Black.
Nichols was ‘helpless’
Some of the most emotional testimony at trial came from one of the officers, Desmond Mills, who took a plea deal in which prosecutors call for up to 15 years in prison. He testified in tears that he was sorry for the beating, that he left Nichols’s young son fatherless and that he wishes he stopped the punches. Later, he testified that he went along with a coverup in hopes that Nichols would survive and the whole thing would “blow over.”
Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. His son is now seven years old.
The other officer who reached a deal with prosecutors, Emmitt Martin, testified that Nichols was “helpless” while officers pummeled him, and that afterward the officers understood “they weren’t going to tell on me, and I wasn’t going to tell on them.”
Under his plea agreement, prosecutors will suggest a prison sentence of up to 40 years.
Defence attorneys questioned whether the officers were properly trained. They also pointed to Martin, who acknowledged punching and kicking Nichols in the upper torso and head, as a principal aggressor.
The police video shows the officers milling about and talking as Nichols struggles with his injuries. An autopsy report shows he died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and other areas.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty, although Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. A trial date in state court has not been set.
