Washington (AFP) – A former officer on trial over the brutal beating death of a Black motorist was found guilty of civil rights offenses Thursday in US federal court, while two others were convicted on charges of witness tampering. All three were cleared of the most serious charge they faced, which would have held them responsible for the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols. But they still face long prison sentences, up to 20 years, after the felony convictions.
A total of five Black police officers were charged in connection with the January 2023 death of Nichols, who was kicked, punched, tased, and pepper sprayed after a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee, in an assault captured on surveillance and police body-cam video. Two of them pleaded guilty to felony civil rights charges while three more — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith — chose to go to trial on charges that included depriving Nichols of his rights through excessive force.
The jury spent three weeks repeatedly watching the video, including graphic clips in which the officers punch and kick Nichols and hit him with a police baton near his home as he called out for his mother. The case caused outrage in America and prompted calls for police reform. The jury announced its verdicts after more than five hours of deliberation.
All three ex-officers who went to trial were found guilty of witness tampering, a felony, for omitting information and making false and misleading statements as the beating was under investigation. Bean, Smith, and Haley were acquitted of violating Nichols’s civil rights causing death — the most serious charge. Haley was convicted of the lesser charge of violating his civil rights causing bodily injury. Haley was also found guilty of conspiracy to witness tamper.
All three still face second-degree murder charges in Tennessee state court. Sentencing is set for January. The judge ordered the three defendants taken into custody. During the trial, the two officers who pleaded guilty testified against their former colleagues. The witness tampering charges carry possible sentences of up to 20 years, while the civil rights charge against Haley carries up to 10 years in prison.
The Justice Department issued a statement saying it hoped the verdicts provide “some measure of comfort” for the family of Nichols, who was a father of one. “A basic principle for our system of justice is that there is — and there only can be — one rule of law,” said Acting US Attorney Reagan Fondren for the Western District of Tennessee. “Law enforcement officers must be held to the same rules as the citizens they’re sworn to protect,” said Fondren.
The five officers, members of a since-disbanded special anti-crime squad called the Scorpion Unit, were captured on video beating Nichols during a January 7, 2023 traffic stop near his home. He died at a hospital three days later. Vice President Kamala Harris attended his funeral and Nichols’s relatives were invited to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in Washington last year.
© 2024 AFP
