Tyre Nichols trial: Witness claims officers left vital information out of reports

UPDATE, 3:30 p.m.: Response to Resistance (RTR) forms from Bean, Smith, and Haley were approved and entered into evidence on Thursday.

According to expert witness Larnce Wright, all three of the RTR forms submitted by each officer after the beating of Tyre Nichols were inaccurate in some capacity.

Lieutenant Wright says officers are to fill out these forms when they experience resistance during an arrest and use force in response to this resistance. He says that in these RTRs officers must recount the details of the encounter to the best of their ability.

Wright was questioned on each officer’s RTR separately. When asked about the accuracy of Tadarrius Bean’s report, he stated that it was inaccurate compared to what was seen on body camera footage.

“They did not tell what force they used,” said Wright.

He previously mentioned that officers are trained in “soft hand techniques.” Wright says Bean used the term in his RTR report, but claims that officers are not trained to use “soft hand techniques” with closed hands, which Bean was seen on video doing.

When questioned about Justin Smith’s RTR, Wright said that nowhere on the report was it stated that Bean or Smith punched Nichols, or that they had their hands on him at all. Also, nothing was said about kicks to Nichols.

Wright’s response to the RTR from Demetrius Haley was very similar to the previous two, except he also mentioned: “From his [Haley] report, I would say that he wasn’t at the second scene.”

Haley also allegedly never mentioned the kicks to Nichols in his report. He said that one of the consequences of writing a false report is termination.

During cross examinations Kevin Whitmore asked about MPD policy concerning resistance and force. On Thursday, Wright described the policy as being “little resistance = little force, and a lot of resistance = a lot of force” and so on.

Whitmore argued that this was not the direct policy, to which Wright explained that making the comparison is a way of easily explaining the policy so that it is better understood. Wright says the words verbatim are, “make the resistance and force match.”

The Duty to Intervene policy was entered into evidence, along with the curriculum of the MPD Training Academy.

According to Wright, officers spend about 920 hours at the academy in total, and each class has a different amount of required hours.

Whitmore made the argument that the classes which might be considered more important for officers day-to-day require less training hours than the ones involving situations officers may not face as often. He mentioned that the gun training class is 208 hours in total, yet an officer may never fire their service weapon in the line of duty.

The jury was dismissed, and the trial is scheduled to pick back up on Monday morning with Wright still on the stand.

Earlier coverage is below

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Questions regarding use of force forms and their place in the federal trial for three former Memphis Police officers accused in the beating death of Tyre Nichols are in the spotlight on Friday.

The question is whether some statements and documents Officer Demetrius Haley filled out will be admissible in court.

A lot of this centers around the statements officers must give to Memphis Police any time there is use of force, which are called Garrity statements.

In court on Friday, there was a hearing to decide if those statements and the Response to Resistance Forms can be admitted as evidence in this case.

All of this was heard without a jury present, and now the judge will decide if they can be presented in the presence of a jury. This is important because what officers write in those forms will be looked at and compared to what is seen in the video of Tyre Nichols being beaten.

Former officer Demetrius Haley wants those documents excluded from the trial.

Haley took the stand briefly to answer questions about what he thought would happen with the Garrity statements he made and the resistance forms he filled out.

He was questioned about whether he was compelled to fill them out or complained about not wanting to. He admitted that he talked about the forms with other officers and defendant Tadarrius Bean.

Haley also admitted to leaving information out of the form but said it was not on purpose.

Defense attorneys say the forms and Garrity statement should be protected, if not it should be a mistrial. The prosecution says they are part of the incident and should be included in criminal proceedings.

Judge Mark Norris has recessed court and says that he is taking all of that under advisement.

Second Lieutenant Larnce Wright, one of the instructors who trained all five of the accused officers at the MPD Training Academy testified on Thursday . He said along with the use of force, the traffic stop itself was against MPD policy.

“Officers may only use the necessary amount of force. Resistance and force must match,” Wright said. “They can not use force as punishment.”

Lieutenant Wright also mentioned that Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith, the three officers on trial, were taught that if they violated these policies they could go to federal prison.

Wright’s testimony is expected to continue on Friday morning with cross-examination by the defense.

Bean, Haley, and Smith will stand trial over the next two to three weeks on charges of federal civil rights violations, conspiracy, and obstruction in connection to Tyre Nichols’ death in 2023.

This story will be updated throughout the day on Friday.

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