The Memphis Police Department’s Scorpion Unit was established in 2021 to establish peace in high-crime, hot-spot neighborhoods. So how did unarmed 29-year-old Black man Tyre Nichols end up beaten to death after an alleged traffic violation?
In partnership with The Commercial Appeal, we investigate the brutal beating and analyze body cam footage released by police to understand what went wrong that night. We interview a former Memphis police lieutenant who breaks down the role that race played and discusses aggressive recruiting tactics that the Memphis Police Department employed under Chief Cerelyn Davis and Mayor Jim Strickland. We also delve deep into the decades-long fraught relationship between communities of color and police that dates back to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.
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Credits:
Executive Producer and Writer: Yasmeen Qureshi
Producers: Andrea Kramar and Lamar Salter
Lead Editor: Mark Apicella
Reporter: Micaela Watts
Director of Photography: Corentin Soibinet
Camera: Andrea Kramar and Yasmeen Qureshi
Additional Camera: Lamar Salter and Stu Boyd II
Drone Photography: Barbara Gaunt and Stu Boyd II
Additional Reporting: Lucas Finton
Motion Graphics Designers: Mike De Angelis, Yasmin Mistry and William Pennington
Assistant Editor: Joshua Cheatum
Sound Editor: James Panepinto
Consulting Producer: David Hamlin
Executives of Production:
Kate Gutman
Russ Torres
Robert Padavick
Special thanks to:
Mark Russell, The Commercial Appeal Staff
ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE:
AP
WMC-TV
NBC News Archives
Austin Robert Dick
Ryan Wilson
George Holliday/Roby Massarotto
Archival Photos:
AP, The Commercial Appeal, Getty Images, Ben Crump Law, University of Memphis Libraries- Special Collections Department, Memphis Press-Scimitar, LJ Abraham, Bennie Smith
Photographers:
Austin Robert Dick, Ryan Wilson, Ray Padilla, Chris Day, Joe Rondone, Christine Tannous, Jim Shearin, Barney Sellers, Vernon Matthews, George Walker IV, Horace Court, Charles Kelly, William Leaptrott, Jack E. Cantrell, Tom Barber, James R. Reid
#TyreNichols #Police #Memphis
Nothing went wrong – it was perfect.
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I’m from Memphis and I can tell you precisely why this totally senseless murder happened!
In the 1980s, The City of Memphis created special units of The Memphis Police Department to Rob Drug Dealers to Cover The City Of Memphis’ Budgetary Shortfalls and both The Memphis City Council and The Heirarchy of The Memphis Police Department knew that this was illegal so The Memphis City Council Absolutely Wouldn’t Sign Off On These Hideous Policies, (which were in fact going on in several large U.S. Cities across the country during the same time District Attorneys all over the country Mass-encarceting Any Black Man That They Could Get Their Hands On, Guilty Or Not To, Build A Successful Career For Themselves,) and The Heirarchy of The Memphis Police Department Absolutely wouldn’t sign off on it so the Memphis Police Department would get the absolutely lowest ranking Police officer on the Police department that could sign off on it to sign off on it.
Even into the late 1990s, there were Raging Arguments over these hideous policies at MPD, that’s how I heard about it, because the Arguments were so big that they spilled out onto the streets.
These Special Units that carried out these hideous policies were allowed to remain in place, even after the Crack Era had passed, and after decades of being totally unchecked by local government, these units eventually evolved into the Gang of Killers that finally had to be demobilized after this young man’s totally senseless and officially indefensible and inexplicable death!