Former Memphis Police Department officers, from top left: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, and from bottom left, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith.
MEMPHIS — Prosecutors in Memphis began opening arguments on Wednesday against the three officers on trial in the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was beaten by five officers after he fled a traffic stop in January 2023.
Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith pleaded not guilty to charges of violating Nichols’ civil rights during the fatal traffic stop last year and are being tried as co-defendants.
If convicted during trial, the three officers face possible life sentences.
Prosecutors said jurors will watch footage of officers fatally beating Nichols during the trial.
“We are going to ask you to do something very hard. We are going to ask that you watch Tyre Nichols being beaten to death,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Rogers told the jury.
“You will also be able to hear the punches, kicks and baton strikes and the impact as they landed on Mr. Nichols’ body. As I said before, those will not be easy days in the courtroom.”
John Keith Perry, a defense attorney representing Bean, told jurors that Bean and the other officers did what they were trained to do.
“These men were called to do the most dangerous job in one of the most dangerous areas of the country.”
Later, Haley’s defense attorney Michael Stengel gave his opening statements, arguing that Memphis police’s use-of-force continuum trained Haley and the other four officers to beat Nichols in the fashion they did.
Stengel said officers were taught to use empty and closed-hand techniques. He also said “kicks, punches” and other “striking techniques” were taught to officers in the police academy.
“None of us, except an officer, have a job where they are authorized to use force. Officers are trained on what force is appropriate, and that is the use-of-force continuum,” Stengel said in front of jurors.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump stood by Nichols’ mother and father, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, with local Memphis pastors in a press conference during trial recess. Nichols’ parents asked pastors to hold a prayer session during the break.
“My hope is that they are found guilty and to show the world that my son is a good person and he was not the criminal they are trying to make him out to be,” RowVaughn Wells said during the press conference while holding back tears.
Crump’s team declined to comment on the legal proceedings and evidence presented during the trial. The lawyers also said Nichols’ family will travel to Washington, D.C., over the weekend to advocate for the passage of the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act along with legislation requiring officers to have the duty to intervene, a law referencing Nichols’ death.
“From the very beginning, Tyre’s family has prayed for justice and accountability. And now that a jury has been selected, his family continues to pray that the jury will receive all of the evidence and they will render justice for Tyre,” Crump said during the press conference.
Following the court’s recess session, defense attorney Martin Zummach, who represents Smith, said the former officer would testify in self-defense in the trial.
After Zummach’s opening statement, prosecutors called Rachel Love, their first witness, to the stand. Love is a nurse practitioner at St. Francis Hospital, where Nichols died.
Love, who was at the hospital at the time Nichols arrived, said officers were also there and described their behavior as “casual.”
Prosecutors presented four photographs of Nichols displaying injuries on various parts of his body. Love said when she saw Nichols, his front teeth were broken and there were lacerations on both his lip and chest area. She said it looked like Nichols had been in a bar fight.
“The biggest injury right off the bat, he had a large goose egg on his head. It looked like a golf ball cut in half and placed on his head,” she said.
Andrew Galotti, who works with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, was the second witness called to the stand Wednesday. Galotti discussed the process of managing video footage from a SkyCop camera that captured the five officers beating Nichols.
The trial began Monday with jury selection. Sixteen jurors were chosen by the end of the day on Tuesday from a pool of over 200.
Nichols’ parents attended jury selection on Tuesday in front of U.S. District Judge Mark Norris. In an interview with HuffPost , Nichols’ parents described the days leading up to the trial as difficult and a reminder of the pain they felt when their son died on Jan. 10 last year.
“We have been dealing with this since it happened. The community of Memphis has been very gracious to us. We have been able to go out and do things like normal, but as things get closer — we started to stay in more because the feelings and everything else are about to pop back up and resurface,” Nichols’ mother told HuffPost.
Two other officers, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr., have pleaded guilty to federal charges. Martin pleaded guilty to charges of excessive force and conspiracy to tamper with a witness on Aug. 23. Prosecutors are seeking to sentence him to up to 40 years in prison.
Mills, the first officer to enter a guilty plea, faces up to 15 years after he pleaded guilty to federal charges of obstruction of justice and excessive force in a deal with federal prosecutors last Nov. 2. Mills also agreed to plead guilty to state charges, which include second-degree murder.
Martin, Bean, Haley and Smith have not entered guilty pleas on state charges.
Body-worn camera footage from Jan. 7, the day of Nichols’ beating, showed officers forcibly removing him from his vehicle while he was sitting at a traffic light. As Nichols fled on foot, officers chased him into a residential neighborhood, just seconds away from his parents’ home.
Footage showed officers taking turns punching, kicking and shocking Nichols with a Taser until he was left apparently unconscious and lying against a Memphis police vehicle. Memphis Fire Department Emergency service personnel did not immediately render aid to Nichols, resulting in the firing of three fire department employees.
Another police officer, Preston Hemphill, was fired for his actions during the fatal encounter. Hemphill was seen on camera encouraging other officers to beat Nichols.
Hemphill and the three fire department employees who were present at the time of Tyre’s beating are expected to testify as witnesses. Mills and Martin are also considered potential witnesses slated to testify against their former fellow officers.
Memphis’ city council made efforts to pass police reform following Nichols’ death, but Tennessee Republicans passed legislation that would block local governments from passing police reform measures.
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