“It’s in the perfect curiosity of all to completely deactivate the Scorpion unit,” she stated in an announcement. She stated the officers presently assigned to the unit agreed “unreservedly” with the step.
The unit consists of three groups of about 30 officers who goal violent offenders in areas beset by excessive crime. It had been inactive since Nichols’ Jan. 7 arrest.
Scorpion stands for Road Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods.
Protestors marching although downtown Memphis cheered once they heard the unit had been dissolved. One protestor stated over a bullhorn “the unit that killed Tyre has been completely disbanded.”
In an interview Friday with The Related Press, Davis stated she wouldn’t shut down a unit if just a few officers commit “some egregious act” and since she wants that unit to proceed to work.
“The entire concept that the Scorpion unit is a nasty unit, I simply have an issue with that,” Davis stated.
The disbanding was introduced because the nation and the town struggled to come back to grips with video displaying police pummeling the Black motorist.
The footage launched Friday left many unanswered questions in regards to the site visitors cease involving Nichols and about different regulation enforcement officers who stood by as he lay immobile on the pavement. It video additionally renewed doubts about why deadly encounters with regulation enforcement proceed to occur after repeated requires change.
The 5 disgraced former Memphis Police Division officers, who’re additionally Black, have been fired and charged with homicide and different crimes in Nichols’ dying three days after the arrest.
The recording reveals police savagely beating Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx employee, for 3 minutes whereas screaming profanities at him in an assault that the Nichols household authorized staff has likened to the notorious 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Nichols calls out for his mom earlier than his limp physique is propped towards a squad automotive and the officers change fist-bumps.
The 5 officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — withstand 60 years in jail if convicted of second-degree homicide.
