A sixth Memphis officer was fired Friday after an internal police investigation found he violated several department policies in the violent arrest of Tyre Nichols, including rules on the deployment of a stun gun, officials said. were involved.
Preston Hemphill was suspended as an investigation was conducted into his role in the January 7 arrest of Nichols, who died three days later in a hospital. Five Memphis officers have already been fired and charged with second-degree murder in Nichols’ death.
Nichols was thrashed by the police after stopping them for violating traffic rules. Videos released after pressure from Nichols’ family showed officers holding him down and repeatedly punching, kicking and batting him as he screamed for his mother.
The officers who have been fired and charged are Black, as was Nichols. Hemphill is white. Another officer has been suspended, but he has not been identified.
Hemphill was the third officer at the traffic stop prior to the arrest but was not at the location where Nichols was beaten after he fled.
On body camera footage from the initial stop, Hemphill is heard saying he used a stun gun against Nichols and declaring, “I hope they kick his ass.”
Police said in a statement that as well as breaking rules regarding the use of a stun gun, Hemphill had also been fired for breach of personal conduct and truthfulness.
Police announced Hemphill’s suspension on January 30, but said that Hemphill was actually suspended shortly after his arrest.
Memphis police spokeswoman Karen Rudolph said that information about Hemphill’s suspension was not immediately released because Hemphill had not been fired. Rudolph said the department typically provides information about an officer’s punishment only after a departmental investigation into misconduct has concluded.
After the suspension was announced, attorneys for Nichols’ family questioned why the department had not disclosed Hemphill’s discipline earlier.
Attorneys Ben Crump and Anthony Romanucci said in a statement, “We have asked from the beginning that the Memphis Police Department be transparent with the family and community – this news indicates they have not risen to the occasion.” “This certainly begs the question of why the white officer involved in this brutal assault was shielded from the public eye and, to date, from substantial discipline and accountability.”
Also on Friday, a Tennessee board suspended the emergency medical technician licenses of two former Memphis Fire Department employees for failing to provide critical care.
The suspensions of EMT Robert Long and Advanced EMT JaMichael Sandridge are based on officers’ efforts to hold the officers and other first responders responsible for the violence against Nichols. The Justice Department has launched a civil rights investigation into the assault captured on video.
Three fire department employees were fired after Nichols’ death. Former Fire Department Lieutenant Michelle Whitaker was the third employee, but her license was not considered for suspension on Friday. The department has said that in response to beating Nichols, she remained in the engine with the driver.
Emergency Medical Services Board member Jeff Beaman said during Friday’s emergency meeting that there could have been other licensed personnel at the scene — including a supervisor — who could have prevented the situation that led to Nichols’ death. Beaman said he hopes the board will look to him in the future.
Matt Gibbs, an attorney with the state health department, said the two suspensions were “not the final settlement of this whole matter.”
Board members viewed 19 minutes of surveillance video that showed Long and Sandridge as they failed to attend to Nichols, who could not remain seated upright in the side of the vehicle, lying on the ground several times. They also considered an affidavit by the EMS deputy chief of the Memphis Fire Department.
“The (state) Department of (Health) alleges that neither Mr. Sandridge nor Mr. Long engaged in the emergency care and treatment of patient Tien, who was clearly in distress during a 19-minute period,” Gibbs said. “
Board member Sullivan Smith said it was “obvious even to a layman” that Nichols was “in terrible trouble and needed help.”
“And they failed to provide that assistance,” Smith said. “Those were their best shots, and they failed to help.”
Fire Chief Gina Sweat has said the department received a call from police after someone pepper sprayed them. When workers arrived at 8:41 p.m., Nichols was handcuffed to the ground and pinned against a squad car, the statement said.
Long and Sandridge, based on the nature of the call and the information provided to them by police, “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment of Mr. Nichols,” the statement said.
There was no immediate response to a voicemail seeking comment left at the number listed for Long. A person who answered phone calls to the number listed for Sandridge declined to comment on the board’s decision.
The statement said an ambulance was called and it arrived at 8:55 p.m. Authorities said an emergency unit attended to Nichols and left with him for the hospital at 9:08 p.m., which was 27 minutes after Long, Sandridge and Whittaker arrived.
An investigation determined that the trio violated multiple policies and protocols, the statement said, adding that “their actions or inactions on the scene that night did not meet the expectations of the Memphis Fire Department.”
The sacked officers involved were part of the so-called Scorpion unit, which targets violent criminals in high-crime areas. Police Chief Cerelin “CJ” Davis said after the release of the video that the unit had been disbanded.
Mayor Jim Strickland said Friday that the city has ordered a review of its police department — including specialized units and use-of-force policies — through the US Department of Justice’s Office of Community-oriented Policing Services, or COPS, through the Collaborative Reform Initiative. from the Technical Assistance Center Program, and the International Association of Police Chiefs. The COPS group is also assisting with a review of the law enforcement response to the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers.
The killing led to renewed public discussion about how police forces may treat black residents with excessive violence, regardless of the race of both the police officers and the police themselves.
At Nichols’ funeral on Wednesday, calls for reform and justice combined with grief over the loss of a son, a brother, a father and a man remembered as a passionate photographer and skateboarder.
