BREAKING: Memphis Officers Acquitted of All Charges In Tyre Nichols Beating Death
The case originally ignited a firestorm in the BLM era
Thank you for reading and for being a curious citizen. We need more people like you! This post is free, but there’s a lot more going on behind the paywall. Please consider becoming a paid member to support independent media and also to just be one of the cool kids.
You may remember the Tyre Nichols case from back in 2023 - the Before Time.
In that moment, our nation was still wrestling with the Black Lives Matter-era fallout and police forces across the country were under intense scrutiny. The Nichols case was a tragic conundrum for the legacy media. Stories about bad cops were at a premium. Stories about bad cops abusing Black Americans were at an even higher premium. But in this terrible incident, the police officers were all Black. That made the angle for the legacy media clickbait a little harder to cover.
Naturally, the story disappeared rather quickly from the mainstream. The officers were charged and went to trial. On Wednesday the jury returned a verdict - not guilty on all charges.
This is breaking news and so far not many details about the deliberations are available. One local channel did summarize each of the nine days of the trial and you can follow the link below to find that.
I watched the video of Nichols’ beating and it was clear there were some bad actors involved. At the time of his death, rumors had been swirling about Nichols’ possible involvement with a wife of one of the officers. The jury can only adjudicate the evidence before them, not the backstory. Having served on a jury myself, I do know the process is a lot more difficult from the inside than it looks from the outside.
Here’s the report from Memphis’ Fox13:
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Three former Memphis Police officers were found not guilty on all charges against them in the state trial related to the death of Tyre Nichols.
Those defendants, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, and Tadarrius Bean, faced seven charges each. The jury returned a vote of not guilty on all of those charges for each defendant.
The trial lasted nine days, not including jury selection and a Sunday when court was not held.
FOX13 took note of every thing that happened in the courtroom during the trial. Read through the live updates FOX13 recorded during the trial below.
Defense attorney John Keith Perry represented Bean, Martin Zummach defended Smith and Haley was represented by Michael Stengel and Stephen Leffler.
I recorded a podcast on the incident at the time. You might be interested to circle back and take a listen. I haven’t had the opportunity to get my older audio on YouTube yet, so this one is just audio but it’s available on all audio platforms.
I’m not sure what to say about this story at this point. It’s something that probably happens a lot in urban areas with little outside oversight. This case always felt like a case of local corruption and personal conflicts that happened to land in a tumultuous time. As a result, it was launched into the public consciousness for a moment, just long enough to cause angst before the nation moved on to other anxieties, leaving the Memphis community to pick up the pieces.
I do believe it is indicative of a larger issue in police hiring and training, particular in urban areas, which I address in the podcast. I hope you’ll take a listen and drop a comment here or send me an email to JLTY@protonmail.com
*My work is completely supported by generous readers and listeners like you. If you’d like to help keep my voice free and independent, please consider a paid subscription or giving a gift subscription.
*Or share this post with friends.
*Or subscribe to my podcast wherever you find your audio podcasts or YouTube
Well, well, well. Who knew BLM would ignited violence! Until they found out the cops weren't white.