‘The World Is Watching Us’: Memphis DA Calls for Police Reform After Announcing Murder Charges Against Cops for Tyre Nichols’ Death

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy announced multiple charges against five former Memphis, Tennessee police officers for the death of Tyre Nichols — including for second degree murder — and issued a call for police reform.

Nichols was allegedly beaten by the officers after being pulled over for reckless driving on Jan. 7 of this year. The Memphis Police Department issued a statement on social media the next day saying that a “confrontation occurred” after a suspect [Nichols] had “fled the scene on foot,” and was transported to a local hospital “in critical condition.”

Nichols died on Jan. 10. He was 29 years old. All five officers were fired shortly thereafter.

The police body camera video and other footage has not yet been released publicly, but investigators with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reviewed at as part of their investigation and Nichols’ family members and attorneys viewed it this week.

“He was defenseless the entire time,” said Nichols family attorney Antonio Romanucci. “He was a human piñata for those police officers. It was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes.”

At Thursday’s press conference, Mulroy expressed his gratitude to the Nichols family for their patience and said that his office had sought to expedite the investigation and review of charges to be completed before the video was publicly released so it would not compromise what he called an “extraordinary” case against the officers.

Mulroy then confirmed that earlier in the day Thursday, a grand jury had returned indictments against all five of the former MPD officers for the death of Tyre Nichols, and all five were currently in custody.

Emmit Martin III, Justin Smith, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Desmond Mills were each charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping involving the possession of a weapon, aggravated kidnapping resulting in bodily injury, official misconduct through unauthorized exercise of power, official misconduct through failure to act when there is a duty imposed by a law, and official oppression, Mulroy announced.

“While each of the five individuals played a different role in the incident in question, the actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols, and they are all responsible,” Mulroy added.

This was “still an ongoing investigation,” he said, and asked for the public’s patience. The video footage would be released by the city of Memphis sometime after 6:00 pm Friday.

“Let me close by saying both to the family of Tyre Nichols and to the broader community here in Memphis and Shelby County, we all want the same thing,” Mulroy concluded. “We all want justice for Tyre Nichols. It’s my hope that if there is any silver lining to be drawn from this very dark cloud, it’s that perhaps this incident can open a broader conversation about the need for police reform. The world is watching us, and we need to show the world what lessons we can learn from this tragedy. I’m hopeful that we can show them who I know us to be, a community working towards positive change here in Memphis and Shelby County.”

Watch above via CNN.

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