Tyre Nichols Death: What We Know So Far, One Year After His Killing

Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black FedEx worker, was beaten by Memphis police officers for roughly three minutes on the evening of Jan. 7, 2023, after he was stopped for what the police initially said was reckless driving. The stop escalated into a violent confrontation that ended with Mr. Nichols hospitalized in critical condition. Three days later, he died.

Mr. Nichols, a father who had a young son and who loved photographing sunsets and skateboarding, had run toward his mother’s home, crying out for her as he was beaten.

Five police officers, all of whom are also Black, were fired and later charged with various state felonies, including second-degree murder, and separately indicted by a grand jury on federal civil rights, conspiracy and obstruction offenses. One officer has since taken a plea agreement, which included pleading guilty to two felony charges in federal court.

The case drew national outcry and closer scrutiny of policing practices after the city of Memphis released graphic footage that showed officers punching, kicking and using a baton to beat Mr. Nichols as he begged them to stop.

Several other law enforcement and Memphis Fire Department officials were also disciplined or fired in the aftermath of Mr. Nichols’s death. The four police officers who have pleaded not guilty are expected to go to trial for the federal charges in May, and again for the state charges in August.

But a year after Mr. Nichols was killed, there are several unanswered questions about what led to the traffic stop, how much the policing culture in Memphis has changed and how the legal investigations and court proceedings will play out.

Why was Tyre Nichols pulled over?

The video, taken from body camera and surveillance footage, begins as the traffic stop is already underway. Police officers approach Mr. Nichols’s car yelling with their guns raised, open his car door and pull him out of the vehicle. Mr. Nichols says that he “didn’t do anything.”

He drops to the ground, on his side, as officers surround him. He appears to offer no resistance, though he struggles as the officers hold down parts of his body and threaten him. He is pepper-sprayed, and an officer fires a stun gun at Mr. Nichols as he gets up and runs.

The video shows that eight minutes later, he has been pursued into a suburban neighborhood, where officers begin severely beating him close to his mother’s home. They are seen kicking Mr. Nichols in the head when he is on the ground and pulling him back up as another officer uses an extendable baton to hit him several times.

Mr. Nichols does not appear to fight back throughout the beating, which ends with his falling to the ground. More officers arrive on the scene moments later, and Mr. Nichols is not seen receiving medical attention for several minutes.

An autopsy declared his death on Jan. 10 a homicide from blunt force injuries to his head.

But it is still unclear why the officers stopped Mr. Nichols on his drive home, after top police officials walked back initial claims that it was for reckless driving. Additional footage and materials have not yet been released, after a judge delayed their release for much of last year.

A New York Times analysis of the footage found the officers continued escalating force throughout the encounter, whether or not he complied with their orders. The analysis counted at least 71 commands during the approximately 13-minute period. Some were contradictory, including asking Mr. Nichols to show his hands as the officers held them and telling him to get on the ground while he was already lying there.

Court and police documents also detail how the officers moved to limit the amount of body camera footage, either waiting to turn on their cameras or keeping them off altogether. The records say they either lied or misled other officers about the beating, claiming that Mr. Nichols had resisted arrest or omitting the details of the violence.

Four of the officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith — have pleaded not guilty to multiple state felonies. Those charges include second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

The charge of second-degree murder alone is punishable by up to 60 years in prison and fines of up to $50,000, even if the defendant did not strike a blow that by itself would have been fatal.

In September, the Justice Department announced federal charges in a separate case against the former officers. They face two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law, as a grand jury found that they had unlawfully assaulted Mr. Nichols and refused to intervene, and failed to provide medical aid or tell medical responders about his injuries. The indictment says that the two offenses led to Mr. Nichols’s severe injuries and death.

A fifth officer, Desmond Mills Jr., pleaded guilty in the federal investigation — to two felony charges of obstruction of justice and excessive force — in an agreement with federal and state prosecutors. He is expected to also plead guilty to at least some of the state charges against him, which include second-degree murder and potentially testifying against his former colleagues, prosecutors said. Prosectors recommended a 15-year prison sentence, though Mr. Mills is not expected to be sentenced until May.

A trial is scheduled for May in the federal case, while the state case is expected to go to trial in August. In other cases, prosecutions against police brutality — particularly against Black people — have produced a mixed set of verdicts.

The Justice Department has also opened a civil rights investigation into policing in Memphis, examining its use of force policies and how its units behave while patrolling the city streets. And Mr. Nichols’s family has also filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the city and the Police Department.

Other officers, sheriff’s deputies and emergency responders have been fired in connection with the beating, including a sixth officer, Preston Hemphill, who shot his stun gun at Mr. Nichols as he ran away from the police. A top prosecutor said in May that Mr. Hemphill, who is white, would not face criminal charges.

The Memphis Police Department also asked top Tennessee officials to prevent Dewayne M. Smith, the supervising police lieutenant that night, from ever working in law enforcement in the state. Mr. Smith retired before he could be disciplined, but Memphis officials said they would have recommended that he be fired.

What is the state of policing in Memphis?

Weeks after Mr. Nichols’s death, the Memphis Police Department said it had disbanded the specialized police unit to which the five former officers belonged, known as the Scorpion unit. Chief Cerelyn Davis created the unit in 2021 to help address a surge of violence in the city and designed it as a group of about 40 officers that deployed in neighborhoods. The idea partly came from the hope that officers would write fewer tickets and instead seize cars from reckless drivers.

But their targets were overwhelmingly young Black men, a Times review found. And the unit often operated in unmarked vehicles, carrying out traffic stops, seizing weapons and making hundreds of arrests.

And while the Memphis City Council last year approved a series of police reform ordinances, including by imposing guardrails on how and when a traffic stop could be conducted, former Mayor Jim Strickland did not enforce those ordinances before he left office, MLK50, a Memphis-based news outlet, reported.

The city’s new mayor, Paul Young, said he would enforce those ordinances, after he was sworn in this month. Mr. Young has also decided to keep Chief Davis in her role at the department.

“There’s been a lot of lessons learned as far as how do we move forward as a department, and still know that our community needs good police officers on the street,” Chief Davis said at a news conference tied to public safety in Memphis. “The ones that are doing the work every day, that continue to do good work every day — we’ve got to continue to support them, but also ensure that we’re holding them accountable.”

Neelam Bohra, Eliza Fawcett, Jessica Jaglois, Laura Faith Kebede, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting.