Tyre Nichols: Police unit is disbanded after death - BBC

The Memphis Police Department has disbanded the alleged Scorpion peculiar unit, whose officers are accused of murdering Tyre Nichols.

Scorpion stands for "Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace successful Our Neighborhoods".

The portion is simply a 50-person squad tasked with bringing down transgression levels successful peculiar areas.

But present it is being abolished aft its officers were seen beating Mr Nichols, 29, successful the videos from 7 January.

In a statement, the section said "it is successful the champion involvement of each to permanently deactivate" the unit.

"While the heinous actions of a fewer casts a unreality of dishonour connected the rubric Scorpion, it is imperative that we, the Memphis Police Department, instrumentality proactive steps successful the healing process for each impacted," it added.

Mr Nichols' household welcomed the determination successful a connection from their lawyers, calling it "both due and proportional to the tragic decease of Tyre Nichols, and besides a decent and conscionable determination for each citizens of Memphis".

The portion was launched successful October 2021 with a absorption connected high-impact crimes, specified arsenic car thefts and gang-related offences.

The 5 officers - Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith - were fired past week.

They were taken into custody connected Thursday and each faces charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, authoritative misconduct and authoritative oppression.

Four of the 5 posted bail and were released from custody by Friday morning, according to jailhouse records.

Lawyers for Mr Martin and Mr Mills person said their clients volition plead not guilty.

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr said 2 lawman sheriffs who "appeared connected the country following" the confrontation person besides been suspending pending an interior investigation.

"The portion that murdered Tyre has been permanently disbanded," a protester shouted into a megaphone successful Memphis and the assemblage erupted into cheers. 

Despite the rain, the radical of less than 100 protesters had gathered successful the quadrate successful beforehand of the Memphis Police office to request alteration to a strategy of policing that they said makes a wont of brutalising achromatic radical successful Memphis and crossed the country.  

"Memphis is taking a stand," said Casio Montez, 1 of the protestation organisers. "This means we're doing thing right."

Mr Montez vowed that helium and different assemblage organisers would proceed to pressure Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis and metropolis officials until "the community's demands are met", including reforming the department's organised transgression unit.  

In an interrogation with BBC News connected Friday, Chief Davis said the Scorpion portion was created to beryllium "more responsive" and "more proactive" to weapon unit successful the city. But she acknowledged that the officers who brutally bushed Tyre Nichols "decided to spell disconnected the rails".  

"We are doing an idiosyncratic valuation of each units," she said. "This is simply a indispensable step. We privation to beryllium afloat transparent to the community."  

But for some, the occupation of constabulary unit is much profoundly rooted than immoderate betterment tin address.

At the rally Saturday, Memphis autochthonal Allie Watkins held a motion that proclaimed, "All cops uphold achromatic supremacy."  

The motion is historically accurate, she said, due to the fact that the past of policing successful America began with enslaved patrols.  

"This is not an contented of corruption successful the United States, this is an contented of the information that the strategy has been built against achromatic bodies," she said.  If the strategy is broken, she added, the lone mode to hole it is to commencement again.

"We request to person nationalist transgression justness reform", Gloria Browne-Marshall, a prof of law instrumentality astatine John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the BBC. She said units similar the Scorpion portion beryllium "across the country" truthful piecemeal betterment was not going to beryllium a solution.

Police initially said Mr Nichols had been stopped connected suspicion of reckless driving, which has not been substantiated. He died successful infirmary 3 days later, connected 10 January.

Mr Nichols was black, arsenic are each 5 officers charged successful the case.

Memphis Police Department released 4 graphic videos of the postulation halt and its convulsive aftermath connected Friday, totalling much than an hr of footage.

Peaceful protests took spot successful Memphis connected Friday nighttime aft the video was released, with immoderate demonstrators blocking a large road successful the city, portion small-scale demonstrations were held elsewhere successful the country.

Many protesters held banners demanding justness for Mr Nichols and an extremity to "police terror".

Lawyers for Mr Nichols' household likened the battle to the 1991 constabulary beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King.

The Scorpion programme was touted by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland successful a code a twelvemonth ago. He said the metropolis utilized transgression information "to find wherever the portion volition behaviour its enforcement activities wrong the city".

From October 2021 until January 2022, the portion made 566 arrests, helium said. They besides seized much than $100,000 successful cash, 270 vehicles and 253 weapons.

In the aftermath of Mr Nichols' death, 1 section man, Cornell McKinney, told a Memphis-area TV web that helium had a tense brushwood with the portion connected 3 January, conscionable days earlier the incidental involving Mr Nichols.

Mr McKinney alleges that the officers - who were travelling successful unmarked vehicles - threatened to "blow his caput off", pointed a limb astatine his caput and accused him of carrying drugs.

He complained to the Memphis Police Department aft the incident, but says helium has not heard thing back.

One of the officers that arrested Mr Nichols had antecedently been sued by a antheral who accused him of beating him erstwhile helium was a captive 8 years ago.