The gut-wrenching acquittals of the police accused of killing Tyre Nichols

In January 2023, Memphis police officers pulled over Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who was just minutes from his home, and brutally beat him. Video footage captured the officers, all of them Black, striking Nichols repeatedly as he offered no active resistance. Nichols called out for his mother as officers assigned to the since-disbanded “Scorpion” unit continued to pummel him. The 29-year-old father died three days later.

On Wednesday, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith were all acquitted of a count of second-degree murder, a count of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct and a count of official oppression. Two other officers, Desmond Mills Jr. and Emmitt Martin III, pleaded guilty to state charges. All five officers previously were found guilty of (or pleaded guilty to) at least one federal crime.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week called “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.” The title of that document suggests that police in our country are hampered somehow, that they have to follow too many rules, but Tyre Nichols’ dead body is evidence of what happens when the police are unleashed.

Wednesday’s not-guilty verdicts were gut-wrenching and disheartening, but long before the all-white jury began its deliberations, the case had already reminded us that, in American policing, there’s a gulf between written policy and institutional culture.

Memphis Police Department Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said after Nichols’ death that she’d never been “more horrified and disgusted,” and her department found that officers involved in the attack on Nichols violated department policies and ignored their training, specifically their “duty to intervene” when they observe another police officer in the wrong. Even so, Davis was not called to testify during the three officers’ trial. Thus, she was never asked to confirm under oath that they violated protocol. Not only that, but the state didn’t bring forward a single MPD officer or policy expert to testify about whether protocols governing use-of-force or an officer’s duty to intervene were followed.

As a result, the jury — which was brought in from Hamilton County, about five hours away from Memphis — was left without clarity about what the department’s policies require its officers to do and how the officers violated those policies. That silence weakened the case and blurred the line between formal policy and rogue behavior.

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DOJ report finds civil rights violations by the Memphis Police Department December 5, 2024 / 01:56

The defense called Don Cameron, a police training expert, in the apparent hope that he would justify the officers’ actions. But Cameron’s testimony only underscored that the head strikes were excessive, and he testified that the officers ignored their duty to intervene.

Even so, the jury still found the officers not guilty.

According to a Department of Justice report on the Memphis Police Department released in December 2024:

MPD never adopted policies and procedures to direct the SCORPION Unit’s activities and failed to act despite alarming indications that supervision was minimal. We heard from officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, community members, and other advocates that the SCORPION Unit persistently mistreated people. Prosecutors told us that some SCORPION Unit cases involved ‘outrageous’ inconsistencies between body-worn camera video and arrest reports, and if the cases went to trial, they ‘would be laughed out of court.’ The unit’s misconduct led to the dismissal of dozens of criminal cases.

In the Nichols case, there were “outrageous inconsistencies” between what officers entered into police reports and what was plainly visible on Sky Cop and body-worn camera footage.

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The story in Memphis isn’t that individual officers failed. The story is that the department failed. But state prosecutors, likely because they have to work with the police, seemed unwilling to expose the departmental failures. Prosecutors are reluctant to be perceived as “anti-police,” but in this case justice required an intense scrutiny of the department and not just the accused officers.

Even in the cases where police departments have good policies, it’s often the case that culture trumps those policies. That is to say that police departments in America have a culture that rewards silence, valorizes aggression and demonizes those who dissent to problematic behavior. Policies that say police have a “duty to intervene” or say officers should prioritize “de-escalation tactics” may be written in handbooks, but they are too often disregarded in practice, especially when those who break them are shielded by a code of loyalty or a chain of command unwilling to confront them.

When the public rises up in righteous indignation — marching, protesting, grieving — the rhetoric of reform is rolled out like a pressure valve. Police officials use talking points about training and accountability. Policy is weaponized as a pacifier.

Trials like the one for the officers involved in the brutal treatment of Nichols matter so much because they present rare opportunities to press for clarity — to demand that officials and institutions move beyond performance and provide proof that they actually demanded that their officers follow proper procedure and completely comply with the law.

If we are serious about public safety— and want law enforcements that focus on justice and not media management — then we must reject this surface-level theater such departments give us. It is not enough for police departments to write better policies. We must confront the internal cultures that subvert them.