It has now been claimed that the former police officers accused of killing Tyre Nichols beat up another black man only three days prior.
A few miles from the location where Nichols was stopped, Monterrious Harris, 22, claims that he was assaulted on January 4 on Outland Road in Hickory Hill by the same ex-police officers.
Tadarrious Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith, and Desmond Mills Jr. were all dismissed from the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION squad as a result of their role in Nichols’ killing.
The arrest document for Harris’ incident likewise lists the five.
According to a police complaint, Harris attempted to escape the area before driving his vehicle at the detectives and quickly reversing.
The 22-year-old, however, said that when he was confronted by cops, they assaulted him and banged his head into the pavement before threatening to shoot him if he didn’t get out of his vehicle.
Just three days after the alleged assault on January 4, the same five cops attacked Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old man. Three days after the brutal altercation, Nichols passed away in the hospital.
The SCORPION unit was dissolved as the five cops were charged with second-degree murder, assault, abduction, official misconduct, and official oppression and sacked from their posts.
According to Monterrious Harris, the police also contacted him as he was waiting for his cousin outside the Twin Oak Apartments.
He said that the ski-masked police officers “came out of nowhere” since he originally believed he was being robbed until he saw the officer’s vest, according to Local Memphis.
While the others encircled him, one cop pounded on the window of his Chrysler 300. If he didn’t exit the vehicle, one threatened to shoot him.
“I was afraid since I didn’t know what to anticipate,” Harris said. They kept stating they needed to air out my vehicle after they had me arrested and all that.
“Oh, you’ve got your red beam on,” the laughing cop said to the other police. Yes, I was prepared to shoot him, he said.
Harris claims that when the other officers “closed in on me,” one of them grabbed him and struck him “a number of times.”
He claims that a police officer allegedly hit him in the face and banged his head.
When he called out for his cousin and neighbors arrived, they stopped hitting him.
Prior to being transferred to the hospital and subsequently returned to police custody, Harris was taken to a criminal justice facility.
According to the police report, he was a convicted criminal in possession of a firearm that Harris claims belonged to his cousin, as well as possession of a prohibited narcotic and avoiding arrest.
He has filed a federal lawsuit against Memphis, Tennessee, and its police force.
“We filed a case because we feel we can establish that there is a policy and culture in MPD that they violate the rights of young Black mans like Monterrious,” Harris’ attorneys at Spence Partners Law said.
Know your rights, for starters, since these police simply act and do things without expecting you to be aware, said Harris.
Three days after the purported incident, the same police officers beat Tyre Nichols to death.
In a horrifying video, Nichols could be heard pleading for his mother while being tackled by several police officers, pepper sprayed in the face, stomped and punched in the head, and assaulted with a metal baton.
During the roughly five minute incident, which took place only 80 yards from his house, police struck him at least nine times while continuing to yell foul language at him.
Nichols had to wait for about 30 minutes, sprawled over the pavement, even after paramedics came before receiving any substantial medical attention.
He was eventually taken to a nearby hospital, where he eventually passed away from his wounds three days later.
Between October 2021 and January 23, 2022, SCORPION made 566 arrests during its first few months of operation.
SCORPION, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods, was established in October 2021 in response to concerns over increased crime. To reduce killings, assaults, and robberies is its primary goal.
According to authorities in Memphis, the squad is made up of four teams of roughly 40 cops that focus on crime hotspots.
Concerns concerning the unit’s deviation from its basic mandate, insufficient monitoring, and adoption of strategies that upped the likelihood of violence have been highlighted by the Nichols case.
Such units have previously come under examination.
Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, New York City abolished its Anti-Crime Unit, which had similar strategies and objectives as SCORPION.
Weeks after former NYPD captain and current mayor Eric Adams took office in January of last year, amid rising violent crime, he pledged to crack down on crime.
In reaction to Nichols’ death, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said last month that all of the department’s specialty units, including SCORPION, would be reviewed. The act, in her words, was “heinous, irresponsible, and brutal.”
»Tyre Nichols’ murderers beat another black man three days earlier«
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