MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — There was “no need” for five Memphis police officers to punch, kick, and hit Tyre Nichols with a baton on the night he was fatally beaten after a traffic stop, their former supervisor testified Thursday in the federal trial for three of the officers.
Dewayne Smith told the court he was a Memphis police lieutenant who supervised the Scorpion Unit One, which included Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith. He testified that the officers did not tell him that they had beaten Nichols when he spoke to them at the scene after it happened.
Dewayne Smith said he went to Nichols’ home nearby to determine if Nichols used drugs, after officers told him, without evidence, that Nichols was high when they pulled him out of his car.
The former supervisor said he also speculated that Nichols could have been on a hallucinogen or PCP and in a state of “excited delirium” — a controversial diagnosis sometimes used to justify excessive force — because he overpowered larger officers who hit him with pepper spray.
Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. An autopsy report shows Nichols — the father of a boy who is now 7 — died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body. According to the autopsy, only low amounts of ethanol — or drinking alcohol — and tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, were detected in Nichols’ system. THC is found in marijuana.
Dewayne Smith watched video of the beating with jurors, who have seen it several times during more than a week of testimony. Asked if the beating was consistent with his expectations of his officers, Smith told Prosecutor Kathryn Gilbert, “That wasn’t called for.”
Smith became the officers’ supervisor in late 2022, he said. He was allowed to retire in March 2023 “in lieu of termination,” he said.
Prosecutors have said Memphis police would punish people with force for running away from them, a practice known as a “run tax” or a “street tax.” Under cross examination, Smith told Michael Stengel, Haley’s defense lawyer, that he never had complaints of his team using the practice.
Haley, Bean and Justin Smith pleaded not guilty to federal charges of excessive force, failure to intervene, and obstructing justice through witness tampering.
The Memphis Police Department fired the three, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., after Nichols’ death. The officers were later indicted on the federal charges. Martin and Mills have taken plea deals.
All five were members of the Scorpion Unit, which looked for drugs, illegal guns and violent offenders. The unit was disbanded after Nichols’ death.
The Associated Press analyzed what the officers claimed happened on the night of the beating compared to video of the incident. The AP sifted through hundreds of pages of evidence and hours of video from the scene, including officer body cameras.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. A trial date in state court has not been set.
