Not that we needed confirmation that Tyree Nichols, the victim of arguably one of the most brutal police brutality attacks on record, wasn't a threat to the five Memphis police officers who allegedly beat him during a stop in January 2023, but One of the officers testified Monday that Nochols' killing did not need to happen because, in fact, he “was not a threat.”
According to the Associated Pressformer officer Emmitt Martin III; — who pleaded guilty last month to using excessive force and failing to intervene in the unlawful assault, as well as conspiring to conceal the use of unlawful force — took the stand at the federal trial of his former colleagues, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, all of whom have pleaded not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and prevented justice through witness tampering. A fifth former officer, Desmond Mills Jr., also accepted a plea deal in exchange for testifying against Bean, Haley and Smith.
From the AP:
For the first time in the trial, jurors heard from one of the officers who beat Nichols. Martin said he and his former colleagues — members of the Scorpion Unit, a Memphis police task force that went after drugs, illegal weapons and violent criminals — would justify the force they used against a person by exaggerating the person's actions against them. The unit disbanded shortly after Nichols' death.
Martin said he saw Nichols speed up to run a red light and then change lanes without signaling, prompting Martin to follow Nichols with his police car's lights on. Haley eventually stopped Nichols' Nissan, drew his gun, and grabbed Nichols from his vehicle without telling Nichols why he was being stopped.
Martin also drew his gun and joined Haley in trying to restrain Nichols while shouting various conflicting commands, including telling Nichols to give his hands to the officers, turn over on his stomach and put his hands behind his back. his back.
Meanwhile, Nichols was passively resisting officers in a non-aggressive manner — pulling his hands away from officers, who were trying to handcuff him without telling him why, Martin said.
Police officers always seem surprised and offended when a citizen, especially a black citizen, wants to know why they are being arrested before they voluntarily surrender. It's almost as if a policeman's ego cannot have his authority challenged even when the challenge is reasonable. Nichols wanted to know why he was pulled over during a routine traffic stop and killed for it.
“It was not a threat,” Martin testified. “He was helpless.”
According to the New York TimesMartin also admitted he punched and kicked the 29-year-old during the fight and lied about it, convinced his colleagues would back him up.
“I knew they weren't going to say that about me,” Martin said. “And I wasn't going to say it about them.”
Many supporters of “back the blue” may be surprised to learn how often the “blue wall of silence” is all that separates the cops from the common criminals. Of course, the streets have their own prohibition policy, but no one on those streets who commits violent crimes has the support of a police union and a “justice” system that they can almost always count on to give them the benefit of the doubt.
“These are criminal defendants, they just happen to be police officers,” Cami N. Chavis, a law professor at the College of William & Mary and director of the school's criminal justice program, told the Times. “The fact that they are testifying against their fellow officers says nothing about the code of silence. He says the code of silence is so strong that it took a criminal trial for these officers to finally tell the truth.”
Martin acknowledged to prosecutors that he testified in hopes of getting a lighter prison sentence, but also claimed he was turning on his fellow officers “just take it away from me.”
“I can't sit here and live a lie – the truth has to come out,” he said. “It was eating away at me living a lie.”
But if this case was just a drop in a sea of police brutality cases that are routinely swept under the rug, would he still be so guilty? Would he offer this mea culpa if he faced no jail time at all?
All five former officers have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, and all have pleaded not guilty, including Martin. The AP noted that Martin and Mills are expected to change their pleas. A court date for their state trial has not yet been scheduled.