February 14, 2023 • 51 mins
Scorpions of the Memphis Police Department pulled over a vehicle driven by Tyre Nichols. Three days later, Tyre was dead.
Sources
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-02-03/sixth-memphis-officer-fired-after-death-of-tyre-nichols#:~:text=In%20body%2Dcamera%20video%20from,police%20said%20in%20a%20statement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/us/memphis-emt-suspended-preston-hemphill-fired.html
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marcy (00:00):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:22):
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
law.
One of the places that you canlisten to Crime Raven is on
Audible.
With an Audible membership, youcan access podcasts, audiobooks,
and original content.
To support Crime Raven, Audibleis allowing our listeners to try
it for free for 30 days if youvisit
(00:44):
audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
(01:13):
this week we wanted to dosomething a little different
from our usual episode.
In the last month, there's beena lot of attention on the death
of Tyre Nichols after a trafficstop that occurred on January
7th, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Before we discuss the issues,here's the synopsis of the event
(01:33):
and its fallout up to February10th, 2023.
The original police accountstated that at around 8:30 PM a
vehicle operated by Nichols wasobserved driving recklessly.
The car was stopped at theintersection of East Rains and
Ross Road by members of theMemphis Police Department
Scorpion Unit.
(01:55):
Upon contact, the driver wasconfrontational and combative
with officers.
Officers attempted to subdueNichols, but he escaped and fled
on foot into the adjoiningneighborhood.
Additional officers were calledto the area and a search
perimeter was established.
Nichols was discovered sixminutes later and half a mile
(02:16):
away, near the intersection ofBear Creek and CastleGate Lane.
Upon his re-engagement, Nicholscontinued his fight with
officers, which includedattempts to grab their service
weapons.
Nichols was injured during thissecond struggle, so officers
summoned Memphis Fire Departmentmedics.
The medics determined Nicholswas in need of additional care,
(02:37):
and he was transported byambulance to the hospital.
That was the basic officialaccount of the incident
involving Tyre Nichols.
It would've remained that way,memorialized in police records
if Tyre Nichols, afterlanguishing in St.
Francis Hospital in Memphis forthree days hadn't died from his
(02:58):
injuries.
Here's what really happened.
It wouldn't have taken long forMemphis investigators to realize
the department had a problem.
Fixed stationary surveillanceand officer body cameras
recorded the stop and majorparts of the incident.
They did not capture the allegedreckless driving offense on
(03:20):
camera, but the traffic stop wascaptured.
The footage showed one officeropening the driver's side door
of Tyre Nichols car, and with noprior engagement grabbing him
and physically forcing him fromthe car and onto the asphalt
roadway.
Tyree defensively resisted whileasking questions about what was
(03:42):
happening.
Multiple officers screamedorders and obscenities nearly
drowning out Tyree pleas.
He continuously tried to roll tohis back to keep from being
handcuffed.
At one point, an officer steppedforward and announced he was
going to use his taser.
The others released their gripson Tyree Nichols, anticipating
(04:03):
taser deployment.
Tyree stood up quickly as thetaser was fired into his back.
The taser was ineffective and heran southbound on Ross Road into
the adjacent neighborhood.
Tyre Nichols alluded officersfor six minutes, at which point
they saw him running near theintersection of Bear Creek and
CastleGate.
(04:24):
He was about 80 yards from hismother's home.
The officer that spotted Tyreetackled him, and four more
officers from the Scorpion unitconverged at that location.
The officers began beating Tyre,punching him, kicking him, and
Pepper spraying him.
(04:45):
They took turns holding him upand striking him.
Twice they held him up so thatthey could kick him in the face.
He was sprayed with OC spray andhit with a baton repeatedly, all
while handcuffed.
Three body cameras and a CCTVcamera mounted at the top of a
nearby light pole captured thebeating.
(05:08):
What the video did not show wasany aggressive resistance from
Tyree.
None at all.
The video made it clear that theofficer's use of force went far
beyond what was necessary forcapture.
They were punishing TyreeNichols.
After the beating, asemi-conscious Tyree was drug
(05:29):
over to one of the police carsand pushed up into a seated
position while they waited formedics.
During the delay, he lostconsciousness and slumped
sideways to the ground severaltimes.
The officers ordered him to situp, and when he couldn't comply,
they pulled him into a seatedposition.
The first medics arrived in afire engine at 8:41 PM They
(05:53):
recognized he needed furthermedical attention and confirmed
the ambulance response wasneeded, but otherwise did little
to stabilize his worseningcondition.
The ambulance arrived 20 minuteslater and took Tyree to the
hospital.
When he arrived, he was incritical condition.
(06:14):
After the scene cleanup, theofficers involved in the
incident filed police reportsthat did not accurately reflect
the nature of the stop or thesubsequent capture.
They described Tyree Nichols asbeing violently aggressive.
Tyree Nichols died on January10th because of the injury
(06:35):
sustained during the beating.
The death began a cascade ofaction from Memphis City and
county officials.
That same day the TennesseeBureau of Investigations
publicly announced that TyreeNichols died because of injuries
sustained during a use of forceincident with Memphis officers.
All the officers directlyinvolved were suspended, pending
(06:57):
the use of force investigation.
Citizens demanded the departmentrelease the videos.
The county prosecutor issued astatement that said they would
release the videos after theinvestigation was complete.
The Memphis Chief of Police,Cerelyn Davis, having only been
in the job since June, 2021, hadthe uncomfortable task of
(07:20):
describing the incident.
How she characterized what shesaw on the videos was so
different from what we expectedfrom police leadership following
similar incidents that it caughtthe entire nation's attention.
Chief Davis said that what shesaw her officers doing was a,
"vicious prolonged beating.
(07:41):
Adding.
"This is not just a professionalfailing.
This is a failing of basichumanity toward another
individual.
This incident was heinous,reckless, and inhumane.
And in the vein of transparency,when the video is released in
the coming days, you will seethis for yourselves." chief
(08:02):
Davis, reassured protestors thather investigators were working
in cooperation with theTennessee Bureau of
Investigation and the ShelbyCounty District Attorney's
Office.
On January 18th, the Departmentof Justice announced that it too
would be joining the mix.
The US attorney for the WesternDistrict of Tennessee said"last
week, tyree Nichols tragicallydied a few days after he was
(08:25):
involved in an incident whereMemphis Police Department
officers used force during hisarrest.
In cooperation with the fbi,Memphis Field Office, the Civil
Rights Division of theDepartment of Justice has opened
a civil rights investigation."on January 20th, memphis Police
completed its internalinvestigation and released names
(08:49):
of five officers it wasterminating based on violation
of multiple departmentalpolicies, including excessive
use of force, duty to interveneand duty to render aid.
These officers are TadariusBean, Demetrius Haley, Emmett
Martins the third, Desmond MillJr.
(09:11):
And Justin Smith.
On January 23rd, they releasedthe police video to Tyree
Nichols' family.
The family received a littleover an hour of footage from the
officer's cameras and the polemounted unit.
Tyre's stepfather said,"what Isaw on the video today was
horrific.
(09:31):
No father, mother should have towitness what I saw today."
Tyree's mother couldn't bear towatch the video after the first
minute when she heard her soncry out,'What did I do?' One of
the family attorneys said"He wasdefenseless the entire time."
(09:51):
Adding"it was an unadulterated,unabashed, non-stop beating of
this young boy for threeminutes.
That is what we saw in thatvideo.
Not only was it violent, it wassavage." Well-known civil rights
attorney, Ben Crump, afterviewing the footage said, the
video will"remind you of RodneyKing".
(10:16):
On January 26th, the ShelbyCounty Tennessee Criminal Court
released information on theindictment of the five Memphis
police officers.
They were all charged withsecond degree murder, aggravated
assault.
Two charges of aggravatedkidnapping, two charges of
official misconduct, and onecharge of official oppression.
(10:37):
The district attorney explainedthe blanket charges in a
subsequent news conferencesaying,"while each of the five
individuals played a differentrole in the incident in
question, the actions of all ofthem resulted in the death of
Tyre Nichols and they are allresponsible." On January 29th,
(10:57):
the Memphis police chiefannounced she was disbanding the
Scorpion Unit, the acronymScorpions stood for street
crimes operations to restorepeace in our neighborhoods.
On February 3rd, Memphis Policeterminated the employment of a
sixth officer preston Hemphilland released his body camera
video to support that action.
(11:20):
Hemphill was at the scene of theinitial traffic stop and
attempted to use his taser onTyree Nichols.
The taser was ineffective andHemphill watched as Nichols ran
away.
On his video recording, we cansee other officers running after
Nichols.
As Hemphill stood in the streetwatching, he said as if to
himself,"I hope they stomp hisass." Hemphill escaped the
(11:46):
criminal net because he did notrespond to the second scene.
In the Memphis police statementthey fired Hemphill for policy
violations related to the use ofthe taser, his personal conduct
and his truthfulness.
They've also requested thatTennessee decertify him so he
cannot go elsewhere foremployment in law enforcement.
(12:08):
The fire department took actionagainst three of its employees
that had previously beensuspended During investigation.
The emergency medicaltechnicians who responded to the
scene, Robert Long and JimMihael, Sandridge were fired for
failing to render care the 19minutes they were there before
the ambulance arrived.
(12:28):
Their Lieutenant, MichelleWhitaker, who never left the
fire engine as it was parkednearby, was terminated for
dereliction of duty.
(12:51):
Mark, why are we talking aboutthis case today?
Mark (12:55):
I think a lot of people we know have questions.
And as a former police officer Idon't wanna give excuses, there
is no acceptable excuse for whathappened here, but to try to
explain how this could havehappened to make assurances it's
not standard operating procedurefor the majority of police
officers.
And to talk about how this couldbe avoided in the future.
Marcy (13:14):
Let's go through it.
This started ostensibly as atraffic stop for reckless
driving, but the investigatorshave said they haven't been able
to substantiate that.
Do you think that it's possiblethey stopped Nichols for no
reason?
Mark (13:28):
I've heard conjecture that they stopped Nichols for doing
nothing wrong.
And maybe that he was targetedfor some reason.
If you look at the audiorecordings, there's nothing that
I've heard, and I think I'velistened to all of it's been
released that indicated thatthey knew him, that they were
targeting him.
I think there would've been somewords there as they were
expressing things that they, wegot him or this is him, or,
yeah, we got the right guy thatthey would've said something to
(13:51):
indicate that this is the guythey were looking for.
I don't think that's why thisstop happened.
Marcy (13:56):
Some of that conjecture, I think is based on the fact
that one officer sent photos ofTyree after the beating to
several uninvolved people, evenpeople that weren't employees of
the police department.
Mark (14:10):
My personal opinion is that they were just wanting to
share this event look, we beatthe crap outta this guy, kind of
thing.
Which if you think about it, andespecially in what the outcome
here is incredibly stupid.
Marcy (14:22):
Yeah.
Also incredibly immoral.
Was this then a traffic issue?
Mark (14:28):
Yeah, that's my guess.
So reckless driving can bealmost anything the officer can
articulate is dangerous.
In Tennessee, the definition is,and I don't know if they have a
separate municipal code forMemphis.
In Anchorage we had completelydifferent traffic municipal
codes.
But in Tennessee, the definitionof reckless driving is any
person who drives in a, anyvehicle in a willful or wanted
disregard for the safety ofpersons or property.
(14:50):
The driving offense may havebeen small and almost
unrecognizable to somebody whowasn't sitting in the vehicle.
Like he's driving fast oraggressively.
a lot of urban drivers drivelike that.
Maybe he cut an officer off intraffic and it pissed him off.
But it's hard for me to believethey picked Nichols completely
at random.
But actually after watching thevideo, I guess anything's
possible.
(15:11):
What you can see from the videois that the first officer makes
contact is really pissed off.
He jerks the door open and yankstyree out on the ground with no
conversation.
Marcy (15:23):
And that officer is in plain clothes driving an
unmarked car.
As a driver myself, I would beconcerned about whether that was
a legitimate cop that was tryingto stop me.
Mark (15:33):
Yeah.
I can tell you I workedextensively in plain clothes,
and in unmarked vehicles, and wenever, ever made stops in them.
We always had a marked unit, auniformed officer, personnel.
On hand to do those stops.
We might be follow up units, butnever made the stops like that.
Marcy (15:55):
So that wasn't the way you did things.
Mark (15:56):
No.
There's time for fast decisiveaction, but jerking a guy out of
his car with no buildup noconflict prior, isn't something
that I've seen done.
I've made hundreds of trafficstops in my career, and, 99% of
them started with the approachto the window that you see on
tv, the introduction.
Any cop can recite thatintroduction to their sleep.
(16:17):
Good evening, ma.
Sir.
I'm Sergeant Ryan, the AnchoragePolice Department.
Could I see your license,registration, please?
Even if they're driving like anasshole.
We get the formalities done.
And this is true of all theofficers I worked with.
You start a contact with theintroduction, take care of
business.
If the stop goes sideways, whoknows, maybe down the road in
the conversation and theincidents use of force may
(16:38):
become necessary.
But that's an escalationgenerally that the suspect in
the car chose to make.
Marcy (16:46):
Can you give an example of an incident where you did
have to use force to pullsomebody out of a car?
Mark (16:51):
Yeah.
Like immediately.
Yeah.
Okay.
All so one comes to mind.
I'm eating lunch with a coupleother officers at a trusted
restaurant.
It's 4:00 AM in the morning anda woman who's speeding, she's
driving drunk.
She skids on the ice, leaves theroadway over a curb into our
parking lot and collides with mypatrol car I'm sitting at a
table about 40 feet away.
And I can see this woman in sideshot that she looks panic.
(17:14):
She's looking from side to sideand she jams it into reverse and
is trying to back out.
So her tires are spinning so Ijump out.
I run out of the front door andshe's looking at me eyes wide,
and her tires are justscreaming.
Now I have to stop her beforeshe's able to get the car free
and maybe get out back on theroad because it's, let's be
honest, it's a weekend night inthe early morning.
(17:35):
It's likely she's drunk and Iknow that.
she's trying to escape and Ibasically run over, open the
door.
Now keep in mind she's trying toback away from my car.
If she gets traction, she hooksme in that car door.
I'm in trouble physically, soyes, I jerk her out and I put
her on the ground and we cuffher up, but that's an emergency
situation.
She's drunk.
And could hurt people, had shebeen allowed to get away.
(17:56):
She could have hurt me if thecar suddenly got traction.
The difference here is yeah I'mhot, this is adrenaline dump.
But after that take down, Istart talking to her.
We go back down, deescalate thesituation, and I calmly
processed her for dui and shewent to jail.
There was no beating involved.
That's the difference.
(18:16):
You go up, you come back down,
Marcy (18:19):
did she fight with you?
Mark (18:20):
A little, she's struggling with me.
She doesn't want to go to jail.
She knows that she could hit acop car.
Can you imagine the fear?
Even through the drunkenness,you hit a cop car.
I used appropriate force tosubdue her.
She wasn't injured.
Marcy (18:30):
So describe what appropriate force is.
Mark (18:34):
The states regulate the standards for their police
departments in the state.
Everybody has to be certified asa police officer in the state.
And everywhere I'm aware of useswhat they call it, use of force
continuum.
There are variations on the useof force continuum, but everyone
I've ever been exposed to arealong the same theme.
Marcy (18:53):
By force continuum, you mean what level of force is
allowed depends on what level ofresistance that person is using?
Mark (19:01):
Yeah.
And I'll go through'em realquick.
The first level of force isvoice command.
The officer gives someone alawful order.
A lawful order means you have tounder the law obey the order I'm
giving you, for example, is thatif I'm investigating a crime and
you're committing a crime, and Itell you to stop, that's a
lawful order.
You have to stop.
The first is basically mypresence and my voice.
(19:24):
Second level is soft, empty handcontrol.
For example, the person you givethat lawful order to doesn't
stop.
an officer might grab a personby their arm or wrist and or
block them from leaving.
Soft empty hand control isgenerally for defensive
resistance.
Like they're walking away, theystart pulling away.
Defensive resistance is whatTyree Nichols exhibited during
(19:46):
this stop.
Third level is hard, empty handcontrol techniques.
So this is resistance as moreforceful and aggressive.
The subject's pulling violentlyaway.
The subject's bawling hands,like coming at you, like he's
gonna hit or kick the officer.
Depending on the aggressivenessof this, hard empty hand control
could be an armbar takedown,which was one of my favorite
(20:09):
moves for somebody who'sviolent.
Strikes that fend off theattack.
Strikes to nerve centers, likecommon perial strikes that could
potentially stunt a suspect.
So those are basically controltechniques.
It's called hard, empty handcontrol because you're not using
a weapon, you're just grabbing'em.
You're striking them trying toget them to comply.
Now, the fourth level isintermediate weapons.
(20:30):
That's when the baton, thetaser, the OC spray can come in.
These are generally used againsthigher end, aggressive and
aggravated aggressiveresistance.
Some use of force policies allowOC and taser for defensive
resistance, but most don't, andours didn't.
If you are just defensivelytrying to pull away hitting
somebody with a baton hittingthem with oc can seem punitive.
(20:51):
And that's why most policieshave moved those higher up on
the force continuum.
The fifth level aboveintermediate weapons is deadly
force.
The kind of situation where thesuspect has a weapon and is
doing something that endangersthe lives of people or officers.
Obviously the response would bean officer using a firearm as an
example of deadly force.
But certain strikes, a batonstrike to the head is also
(21:15):
usually considered deadly forcebecause, you get hit with a
baton that's, 24 inches ofhickory it could crack your
skull potentially endangeringyour life.
It's important to say that mostdepartments require use of force
to be reasonable.
That just because youtechnically could use a maximum
force against a certain level ofaggression doesn't mean you
should.
In essence what that is if Icome upon a 95 year old woman
(21:36):
who's holding a baseball bat andsays, I'm gonna hit you with
this baseball bat, if I pickedher up and slammed her on the
ground.
That would be excessive undermost use of force continuums.
However, if this is a big guywho looks me in the eye, squares
off, raises the bat and said,I'm gonna beat you number one,
that's a deadly force.
But if but if I picked him upand slammed him on the ground,
(21:56):
that would be a good use offorce because it meets the level
of threat.
Like I said, the 95 year oldwoman's unlikely to be able to
beat you to death with aaluminum bat, even if she says
she is.
And that's a similar to a reallife situation that I know about
from my real police careers issomebody who's a little bit too
much not way, but a little bittoo much force in affecting the
arrest of an elderly person.
(22:17):
And although it was within theproper use of force.
What was found is that wasexcessive force because the age
and the real, the ability toproject that harm was just not
there.
It calls on somebody's judgmentto make an assessment of a real
threat.
And what is the appropriatelevel to gain compliance without
going overboard.
Marcy (22:38):
On the force continuum, where do the beanbag guns fall?
Mark (22:43):
same as a baton strike.
If you're in the position whereyou're shooting somebody with a
beanbag, there's a pretty highlevel of threat there.
That's a guy potentially with aknife or some weapon that could,
if he moved, he could projectthat weapon against you.
Now, beanbag are generallyinappropriate for a guy with a
firearm because that guy shootssome, shoots and it's too late,
right?
beanbag's, same level of forceas a baton.
(23:04):
Now, not everybody who isaggressively resisting, should
be hit with a baton.
Marcy (23:09):
So it's not just about the amount of resistance that's
being expressed by a person,it's, there's like the totality
of the circumstances that youhave to take into consideration.
Mark (23:20):
Yes.
And that's why being a policeofficer is a complicated thing.
And it's also why in a lot of,for years, and this is changing
now, police officers have beengiven a lot of latitude to make
that discretion because you haveto make a split second decision.
And the police officers havebeen given a lot of latitude to
make those decisions and not besecond guessed.
But I think we're moving out ofthat now with incidents like
(23:40):
this.
Marcy (23:42):
If the level of force authorized is based on
resistance, then how do youcharacterize what Tyree Nichols
did during this initial stop?
Mark (23:50):
Yeah.
The video clearly shows Tyreeexhibiting what I would call
classic defensive resistance.
Of the times I've encounteredresistance, this is the most
common, it's the lowest level.
They don't wanna go intohandcuffs, they want to pull
away.
They're questioning why this ishappening, the legality of
what's happening.
But what doesn't happen is therearen't any strikes, no punches,
kicks or going for weapons.
(24:11):
That happens, but it's much lesscommon than somebody not wanting
to go to jail and pulling away.
that's where the line is.
That would justify a higherlevel use of force.
And Tyre Nichols in this videoDoes not show a higher level of
force.
He's scared, first of all,probably cuz he was pulled over
by a bunch of guys in plainclothes and unmarked cars.
He doesn't know what's going on.
These aren't, these guys aren'tacting like cops.
(24:32):
He knows from television.
They're swearing at him.
They're ordering, and he'sscared.
Adrenaline dumps going on andhe's trying to turn away and
assess the situation.
And they're not trying toexplain things.
They're yelling obscenities athim.
Marcy (24:45):
Where were his hands?
Cuz one of the concerns that Igather is that if somebody's
hiding their hands while they'reon the ground and resisting the
handcuffs, you're worried aboutthem reaching for a gun in their
waistband.
Mark (24:56):
Yeah.
You're gonna worry about that onthis stop, right?
And one of the things is hishands are down along his sides,
and it is a concern there's aweapon, but what he's really
trying to do is defensivelyresist and he's trying to
leverage his hands on the groundso that he can turn towards them
and talk to them and basicallyquestion them about what's going
on.
Yes, there is a concern he couldhave a weapon, and that's
(25:16):
something that an officer canarticulate, but this is not, if
you watch this thing, he isdefensively resisting what you
would expect to have happen.
He doesn't go for a weapon.
He's trying to turn over andkeep from being handcuffed,
which is, when there is astruggle to get somebody in
handcuffs that's what alwayshappens.
Marcy (25:34):
What's your opinion about that first part of that stop?
Mark (25:39):
My opinion based on what I saw is classic, what they call
contempt of cop.
Here's a police officer who isgreatly offended by what
happened.
Maybe he got cut off in traffic,or the, he saw the guy speeding
and how dare you do that?
And the initiating problem isthis officer was pissed off.
He did not communicateeffectively.
The obscenities being thrownaround really, people question
(25:59):
the legitimacy of what you'redoing when officers are talking
like that, right?
and his defensive resisting, hedidn't just go quietly into
cuffs on the ground, which iswhat they expected.
The defensive resistance furtherpissed them off.
Everybody seemed pissed.
I don't know why.
You think as police officers,especially working at night, you
get used to being sworn at.
And I, man, I think the controltactics here were inexcusable.
(26:23):
There's five officers there.
No one was willing to get down.
No one used the one-on-onecontrol techniques that you're
taught.
Pin them down and use force toforce'em into handcuffs.
I don't know.
They must have missed those daysat the academy.
But I have never personally seensuch ineffectual control,
particularly with so manyofficers present.
This guy's 145 pounds.
(26:44):
He's a tall guy, but he's 145pounds.
And I have never seen so manyofficers with so little control
on a subject So I'm gonna saysomething surprising.
Most individual officers cantake most people into custody
all alone if they're willing tobeat them into submission.
But it is very difficult for asingle officer to force an
uncooperative suspect inhandcuffs by himself.
(27:07):
And that's so no one gets hurt.
There has to be at least two,sometimes more officers who've
been trained to work togetheruse those one-on-one control
techniques and taken, evencombative subject into custody.
You know what should havehappened here is he's pinned
down, takes control of a wrist,and the second one works to the
(27:29):
other arm and works'em back intohandcuffs.
I'm thinking about the timesthat me and a single other
officers took down more, morethan one suspect and struggled
on the ground with them.
And we do it all the time.
And I don't know what theirreluctance to get on the ground
where this guy was.
But I just, I can't believe thelack of control here.
Marcy (27:47):
Tasers are my pet peeve.
What about this taser they triedto use?
They shouldn't have used it,right?
Mark (27:54):
No, and you can see exactly why in that clip, right?
Tasers have their uses andbenefits, but in this case, the
first use of the taser was indrive stun mode.
So people that don't know taserscan be used in two ways.
Tasers can be fired and infiring them, you have a
cartridge on the front of thetaser and two fish hook like
prongs shoot out from the frontof the taser.
(28:14):
With good probe hits, whichmeans they have, they're in the
body in separate areas.
All the muscles in the body lockup between the two probes.
So you want a little bit ofseparation in those probes and
that caused immobilization.
I've had bad taser deployment,just like what happened on the
video.
I'll give you an example of oneof my bad deployments.
The guy had on a tight nylonjacket and the top of my probe
(28:37):
skimmed off his back on thenylon just skimmed off into
space, right?
And and it was ineffective.
it did nothing to him.
Okay.
The second way to use a taser iswhat's called drive stun mode.
You don't have a cartridge onthe front.
No fish hooks, and the probesdon't shoot out this is just
like using your taser, like acattle prod.
So it's painful.
(28:58):
And the reason people use itlike that is cuz it's painful.
It can be used to gainsubmission.
So somebody will do what you saybecause you're cattle prodding
them.
The real problem with drive studmode is it does nothing to
immobilize the subject.
Most officers I work with,myself included, never use
drives stun after the first fewapplications, because it caused
one or two things.
Either the subject you're tasinggets really pissed off or it
(29:22):
cause'em the panic.
And neither are good foraccomplishing the goal of taking
someone into custody.
Marcy (29:28):
You think that's what happened with Tyre?
Mark (29:31):
On the first stop I'm watching the officers drive stun
him.
they're screaming at him, andthis guy's just going up, he's
panicking.
He gets drive stunned, oh myGod, that hurts.
And what the hell's going onwith me, kind of thing.
And that's what I read from thatstop is the drive stun did
nothing to subdue him, and itonly drove his panic higher.
Marcy (29:49):
And you think that they let him go so they could
specifically tase him with theprobes?
Mark (29:54):
There's not a question in my mind.
If you watch the video there's apause when he says he is gonna
tase.
There's a pause, all theofficers let go and some of them
step back.
And just before that, theofficer puts the cartridge on
and then he fires taser.
Obviously the probes don't makesolid contact.
I don't know if they stuck inhis jacket or where they went.
Nichols gets up and runs away,and the reason the officers
(30:17):
don't immediately grab him as hegets up and starts to move is
because they're afraid ofgetting caught up in the wires
and getting shocked themselves.
This whole thing is a fiasco.
You have a pissed off cop, badcommunication, horrible control
tactics.
And now Nichols goes running offinto the night.
Let's review from hisperspective.
He could have been driving likean asshole, but he's not aware
(30:37):
of that.
Like so many people do, so manypeople do.
Here's a guy who purports to bean officer and doesn't even give
him the good evening.
My name is speech.
Like you see on tv, he's notwearing a uniform.
He's not in a marked car.
All Nichols knows is beingpulled to the ground.
Yeah.
They're giving him like officerlike commands.
But they're also doing it undera barrage of obscenities.
(31:00):
And he's saying what ishappening?
What did I do?
He knows that these cops aren'tacting the way they're supposed
to act.
One minute, he's driving hiscar, and the next he's on the
pavement.
He's wondering, is this life ordeath, to him, it sure must have
seemed like it.
And of course he's gonna flee atthe first opportunity.
He doesn't know where all thisis going.
And you, we know from recentevents, Nichols has reason to
(31:20):
fear for his life.
And when he is able to breakaway, he moved as if he was
running for his life because hewas.
And then the cops have to set upa perimeter and run to try and
find him.
I worked at night and this is agreat aspect of the job.
You set up the perimeter and nowit's hide and seek adult style,
right?
So we're looking for a guy inthe perimeter, but these guys
(31:41):
are already pissed, right?
They don't have to go chasingafter a guy.
The pause doesn't do anythingfor their outlook.
I guess none of them resetduring the pause because six
minutes later one of themtackles him on a street corner,
and it's less than a hundredyards from his mother's house.
And those guys are ready forsome retribution.
This isn't really funny, but itwas Chris Rock that made the
video where he said, if copshave to run to catch you,
(32:03):
they're bringing an ass kickingwith them.
He was joking, but apparently inMemphis, the officers took that
to heart.
Up until that point, I'dpersonally seen everything that
had happened in my career.
I've seen a pissed off cop.
I've seen the cops that arereluctant to physically engage
when that is re what is requiredto end a situation.
But I've never seen cops beatinga suspect like that, holding him
(32:26):
up, striking him, and theofficers in Memphis did so with
fists, with a baton.
And they hit'em in the head.
This isn't the movies.
People die.
They get brain damage from blowsto the head.
Experienced cops should knowthat.
This is where those guys boughtthe murder charge.
They stand him up and just beat'em because they're angry.
Marcy (32:48):
You said that the use of OC on the second scene was to
punish Nichols?
Mark (32:54):
With my insight experience.
When I watched the video, thesecond scene, one of the first
things I fixated on I had a gutreaction about the use of OC
spray.
Nichols was sprayed in the faceat very close range, at least a
couple times.
In my experience OC is reallygood for one thing, aggressive
dogs.
Also in my experience, onlyrookies use oc.
(33:14):
I used OC a few times in thefirst couple of years on patrol
and never after that.
I'm talking about the personalOC canister.
I did use the tank OC for civilunrest a couple of times, but
that's different.
Marcy (33:26):
Why didn't you use oc?
Mark (33:29):
It wasn't just me that didn't use OC.
if you're in uniform, you'regonna wear your OC because it's
issued gear.
There was one incident.
I know that one of my coworkers,OC canister, was so old that he
never used it.
It was so old.
The bottom bursts from normalwear and tear like getting in
and outta his car for years.
The bottom of his littlealuminum can of OC popped
(33:50):
because of just wear.
This wasn't because no one everqualified as a good OC target.
It was because the cleanup was apain in the ass.
It went everywhere.
In the field you just couldn'tadequately wash it off.
Most of the time if you had aguy who fought, resisted, et
cetera, like I describedearlier, you could talk him
down.
Things would become tranquil.
(34:10):
Then you could process thepaper.
You might take the guy for bailhearing and remand them to jail.
If you oc to somebody, youaren't gonna get a decent
interview from that suspect yousprayed.
And sometimes you want to get agood interview.
And the reason for that is he orshe, they're miserable.
You are miserable too.
All you want to do is get rid ofthem.
And you better like it spicybecause that stuff's gonna
(34:31):
linger in your car for the restof your shift, even if you wipe
everything down.
I remember being on what is inthe business called a pig pile.
A group of cops trying towrestle a large combative man
into handcuffs.
We had rookies with us, androokie did what this, but what
he is trained to do, heannounces spray.
His field training officer saidvery harshly.
(34:53):
Do not spray.
If you spray, I'm gonna shove itup your ass.
So no spray was used.
So we got that guy intohandcuffs and off we went.
The whole point of that is tosay the Memphis crew used spray
the way they did because theyknew he's going to the hospital
and they wouldn't have to cleanhim up.
Marcy (35:12):
After the beating, the officers propped Tyre up against
one of their cars.
The medics come, but they donothing.
Mark (35:21):
So the way medical calls usually go, particularly at
night, if it's something thepolice can help with, they're
sent to the call because they'llusually be the first to arrive.
Because we're not asleep whenthe call comes in.
The next will be the fire enginewith the firefighters
cross-trained as EMTs orparamedics or a board.
And the ambulances last.
In cities, ambulance crewscommonly run all night and are
(35:42):
often in use and have to clear acall before they get there.
So in this case, in Memphis, thefire engine arrives about 20
minutes before the ambulance.
The paramedics in that role, thejob, is to assess the patient
and give what aid they could.
Considering the nature ofNichols' injuries, there
probably wasn't much that thesetwo paramedics off the fire rig
could do.
And I suspect they didn't wantto get too close to him because
(36:04):
he'd been bathed in oc.
Whatever The truth is, it's acautionary tale for EMTs because
not covering the basics got themand their lieutenant fired.
Marcy (36:14):
Tyre Nichols didn't die for three days.
Are you surprised that theinvestigation was started after
that?
Mark (36:23):
No.
There'd be a time involved wherethere is some communication.
In my roles as a street sergeantand especially as detective
sergeant, I had pretty goodrelations with hospital staff.
I popped into the ERs quite abit, took a look at what was
going on with some of our casesand calls, especially when I was
a sex assault sergeant also.
And.
We would get calls if there wassomething the docs or the staff
(36:44):
didn't like they'd call us, forexample, I get a patient that we
had just sent to the hospitaland the doc, they take the
clothes off, and the woman isjust covered with bruises and
they wanna know, did you seethis?
Did you investigate this?
And so I had to go over thereand talk with'em about what we
saw and what happened.
Same thing with if there's useof force issues they would call
and want to talk to somebody.
(37:04):
The er docs aren't shy aboutasking questions about mechanism
of injury if they get somebodyin there and
Marcy (37:09):
uh,
Mark (37:09):
nasty car wreck.
Well, do we have any idea of thespeed?
This kind of thing?
The same thing with violentattacks or even, police use of
force.
If you look at Tyree Nicholsphotos when he was in the
hospital bed, It is obvious thathe had been beaten very badly.
Keep in mind they, they kickedhim in the head, in the face.
So his head is just swollen.
(37:30):
I think it's likely thatsomebody at the hospital called
to report the status to Memphispolice, or, when he died, the
medical examiner either took thecall and they alerted the PD.
Marcy (37:40):
This case really shows the importance of body cameras
for resolving situations likethis, but digital records don't
always go against the police.
And you've talked about thebenefit of having audio
recordings or videos forinvestigations.
Mark (37:55):
Yeah.
In past episodes I've mentionedworking with internal affairs
and other detective unitsbecause I was in Vice and I had
specialized equipment.
Working cases on other cops is ahorrible experience and one that
I would never have volunteeredfor.
The further along I go and thefurther I get from those cases,
the more perspective I have onhow essential that kind of
(38:16):
accountability is.
Most of the internal recordingsI was looking at as a sergeant
were just simple audiorecordings from my officers or
detectives during contacts.
Marcy (38:28):
Like recordings made by officers during a traffic stop
or an interview.
Mark (38:33):
Yeah, exactly.
So when I was a rookie,recorders were enormous,
physically enormous.
We would take a tape, decks andrecord really important
interviews, like homicides andso forth from witnesses in the
field but not much else.
It quickly evolved as devicesgot smaller and less expensive
and then digitized.
They're more user friendly tostore the data.
(38:55):
At some point, all of the newerguys began recording almost
every traffic stop and contactand this was big for resolving
complaints
Marcy (39:04):
like citizens complaining about officers.
Mark (39:07):
Yeah.
So most complaints came throughinternal affairs.
And internal affairs kept, whatinterested them, and the rest
filtered out to unitsupervisors.
Complaints weren't uncommon andmost could be categorized into
two things.
Questions or criticism aboutwhat the officer had done.
Many of these people are lookingfor a different answer than what
they got from the officers.
Then their complaints ofunprofessional behavior or
(39:29):
rudeness.
So the first category usuallyentailed me explaining, our law
or policy and, most oftenreinforcing what the officer or
detective had done.
My guys, especially as adetective, knew what the policy
procedure was and we followed itall the time.
So basically I had to reaffirm,yes, they knew what they were
talking about.
Yes, this is what we do and soforth.
(39:50):
But on occasion I'd catch errorsthat we made.
And, the good thing there is wewere able to fix those most of
the time.
The second category, the rude onprofessional behavior was where
the audio recordings often camein handy.
Marcy (40:02):
Is that like complaining that the officer had yelled or
swore at them?
Mark (40:07):
Yeah.
I really don't like thepotential of the, he said, she
said in that situation.
When I first started looking atthese when I was a new sergeant
that was like, oh God, how am Igonna prove or disprove what was
said?
But to my surprise, most of thetime I had pretty good audio of
the contact.
And the ones I was listening towere rarely out of bounds.
Sometimes the officer get alittle short.
(40:28):
And invariably the worstsounding complaints often turned
out to be the easiest to handle.
Marcy (40:33):
People were exaggerating with the officer had done.
Mark (40:35):
Yeah.
Either that or outright lied.
I learned from my night shiftsergeant thanks Bill Richardson.
That the best thing to do is leta person who wanted to vent
about the police do just that.
in those cases, I'd get on thephone and I'd hunker down and
let the storm blow itself out.
Sometimes these people justwanted to have somebody listen
to them.
And then I'd talk with'em aboutwhat happened.
(40:55):
And they were, oftentimes it wasvery reasonable.
After, like I said, the stormblew itself out.
sometimes these people werelooking to get, the officer
wrote them a ticket intotrouble, and they'd be blow
hards, saying things like, if Ididn't take care of it they're
gonna have all of our badges.
Well, nobody ever had my badge,and a lot of people said they
were gonna.
My thing was I'd listened to himand after listening I'd assured
(41:16):
the complainant that I reviewall the pertinent inform.
Oftentimes I'd let drop that,these officers carry audio
recorders and the whole thingwas caught on tape.
Then I'd promised to get backwith them with any questions I
had or what my conclusion aboutthe complaint was.
When they found out there waslikely to be a recording, people
would often change their tone orsound different as I talked to
(41:38):
them.
So then I'd review the tape andnine times outta 10 the contact
was markedly different from whatthe complainant described.
Many times there were outrightlies about what the complainant
was saying that the officer hadsaid, or the tone, or,
obscenities he or she used.
In a lot of cases where theperson outright lied, I wouldn't
be able to reach them on, followup calls nor would they call me
(41:58):
back.
Marcy (42:01):
So the dreaded audio recording isn't that bad?
Mark (42:04):
No.
I had a couple that, hey, thisis, questionable, you really
shouldn't have said this, or Ihad some this isn't the
procedure anymore.
Procedures change typecorrections.
For the most part, the officerswere used to making the
recordings.
And most of the time theysounded great.
when it didn't sound great, alot of times it was caused by
the complainant's demeanor.
And when an officer's direct andsounds terse or commanding a lot
(42:26):
of times that's okay in our lineof work, that's not rude.
That's sometimes necessary.
Marcy (42:32):
What about dreading body cameras?
Mark (42:35):
Yeah I was really worried about it.
I never had to work with thebody camera.
I was worried how it wouldchange liabilities as a police
officer in terms of notfollowing policy procedure
exactly.
I was worried there'd be a lotof Monday morning
quarterbacking.
But, after my experience withaudio I was less concerned.
I was worried that body camerawould make a, an impossible for
(42:58):
an officer to make a decision.
This is a profession where attimes you have to make instant
decisions.
To have every move scrutinizedthrough one narrow lens was
disturbing to me.
But what I think we've seen isthat just like the audio
officers are mostly doing theright thing and the real value
in the body cams is confidencethat we can catch the kind of
(43:19):
organizational cancer that wesee displayed in the Memphis
incident.
Marcy (43:25):
Do you think that video from Memphis is just the tip of
the iceberg?
Mark (43:30):
yes, absolutely.
What we've seen with video isthat eventually officers wearing
them relax and it's business asusual.
Now the horrifying thing aboutMemphis is nobody's regulating
things that are being done orthe things that are being said.
None of them, even the officersthat aren't directly involved
around them were like, oh shit,this is bad.
(43:51):
It does not seem like this is anunusual event for them.
And it's probably not outsidethe norm, unfortunately.
So now my opinion about bodycams has changed.
Where they help the officers.
Great.
Maybe it will improve publicconfidence.
Where it exposes problems withofficer conduct.
Great.
They can course correct.
Marcy (44:10):
And the video is important because it shows the
divergence between what theofficers said happened and
reality.
Mark (44:17):
Yeah.
And that's really importantevidence because it shows the
intent.
What the officers wrote in thereports that Nichols did would
justify their higher use offorce.
They said he made an attempt totake an officer's weapon.
That action justifies a veryhigh level of force,
particularly if the person doingthe gun grab is likely to
overpower the officer.
Marcy (44:38):
What do you think of folks that are saying all
specialty units should bedisbanded?
Mark (44:45):
I think the people who say things like that don't
appreciate what a bad idea thatis.
First of all, there are allkinds of specialty units that
people accept that do criticalwork in our cities and our
towns.
These are two varied to give acomplete list, but, you've heard
of'em, crime scene, sex assault,robbery, homicide units, search
and rescue teams.
I think what people are talkingabout is they want to disband
(45:06):
all the specialty units that arestreet focused.
Historically we've had somepretty notorious police teams.
I think of LAPD's crash unitthat comes to mind.
Crash is an acronym that stoodfor community response against
street hoodlums.
That group was rife with thekind of problems I suspect
Scorpion might have in Memphis.
So maybe we should just do awayall the units with aggressive
(45:29):
acronyms.
Marcy (45:29):
Some people have been bandying about the need for
police culture change.
Mark (45:35):
Yeah.
I think that some departmentsprobably do need a drastic
culture change and others not somuch.
I think the key is training.
Having the right instructors,the right instruction all the
way from the academy and intothe field.
Supervision.
You have to have goodsupervision.
When I became a supervisor, myoutlook shifted and broadened.
We need good supervisors who cancatch problems early, before
(45:58):
they become ingrained and out ofcontrol police culture.
Marcy (46:03):
You supervised a street level specialty unit.
Mark (46:06):
That's why I'm sold that not all these units should be
disbanded.
My feeling on specialty units isthat they can be in what is
termed in military terminology,a force multiplier.
For the last few years of mycareer, I was given a unit with
seven investigators and a widelatitude to define our focus.
What I did was I looked at whatother successful anti-crime and
(46:27):
crime suppression units weredoing, and I basically borrowed
from them I divided that unitinto two areas.
First investigative support,using the skills and contacts
from my detective days weassisted in helping solve and
helping move forward some of thecity's most pressing
investigations and crimes.
Second I picked targetedprojects.
(46:49):
With the help of crime mapping Iresearched the city's hotspots
and we came up with creativesolutions, how to solve some of
those.
The whole thing would take toolong to fully cover now, but my
small unit was able to achievethe closure several of
Anchorage's most crime-riddendangerous businesses in a
relatively short amount of time.
Marcy (47:08):
And that is a very different approach from what
patrol usually does or has thecapacity to do.
Mark (47:14):
Yeah, usually patrol is.
Completely responsive.
They run call to call.
They don't have the time orgenerally the equipment or
expertise to work a communityhotspot like we did.
And we were very successful.
We closed down the worst doperflop hotel in town.
A huge building like multistories called the Inlet Inn.
What caught our attention ispatrol went there hundreds of
(47:36):
times a year for all kinds ofcrime you can think about
murders, robberies, sex assault.
My unit, we took a couple ofmonths and we surveilled the
area.
We looked at what was going on.
We built the case and wepressured the owner to close it.
And they did, and we worked withthem to achieve that closure and
to keep the problems in thatparticular hotel from spreading.
(48:00):
Now that den of villainy is aquiet parking lot with zero
police calls.
Okay.
So back to the force multiplier.
Here's another example.
We had an after hours club.
It popped up as a hotspotbecause people were doing all
kinds of violent crimes in thearea, in the wee morning hours
and in the area justsurrounding, it wasn't in the
(48:21):
bar zone or anything, so it wasreally an island in its own.
I was able to call the buildingowner who was leasing space to
the club.
It was upstairs in if you livein Anchorage's Mountain View
area.
So I was able to call thebuilding owner, and at first the
owner didn't wanna do anything.
Oh, the cops are calling.
Who cares?
They're just doing theirbusiness.
And I'm like, no, this is aserious problem.
There are crimes being occurredin your building and around your
(48:43):
building.
And they wouldn't be if youweren't open.
And these things weren't goingon.
So what I did, I knew it wasgonna motivate him, is I had
gotten permission to leverageinsurance coverage against some
of these owners.
And I told them, I know who yourinsurance carrier is, and I'm
going to inform them of some ofthese crimes that you are
(49:03):
helping to create, helping tohouse and some of the
surrounding crimes.
And we'll see what happens.
That business owner said, you'reright, we'll take care of it.
I'm gonna give them evictionnotice and they will stop
operation immediately.
Our night shift patrol had beenworking collateral crimes from
that club for weeks before itcaught my attention.
They had been going there, theytook care of the call, they went
(49:25):
away, a little research from meand one pointed phone call and
it was over.
So that's an example of why Isay a blanket ban on specialty
street units is a bad idea.
I didn't beat anyone to achievethat, but we were very
effective.
The brass loved what we did, andas I was retiring, they planned
to double the size of my eightman unit while retaining the
(49:47):
same areas of focus that I haddefined a few years prior.
As we wrap up, I wanted to saysomething about these cases and
the breach of trust.
There are almost a millionpolice officers in this country.
In my experience, the professionis an honorable one, filled with
honorable men and women thatcare deeply about the
communities they police.
(50:08):
The damage that these cases doto public trust is immeasurable.
They destroy our credibility andour legitimacy.
My hope is that we can rebuildthe trust in the coming years.
I
Marcy (50:20):
am sure that there will continue to be more that comes
out as these cases roll forward.
I hope that Tyree Nichols'family gets the justice that
they deserve.
Tyre was a talented artist andhe didn't deserve to be
murdered.
(50:44):
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(51:08):
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(51:31):
hosted by Mark Rein and MarcyRein is written and directed by
mark Rein and edited andproduced by Marcy Rein And it's
a 3 Little Birds, LLCproduction.
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:22):
Suspects are considered innocentuntil found guilty in a court of
law.
One of the places that you canlisten to Crime Raven is on
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With an Audible membership, youcan access podcasts, audiobooks,
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To support Crime Raven, Audibleis allowing our listeners to try
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(00:44):
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That's free access for 30 daysat audibletrial.com/crimeraven.
We'll also put the link in theshow notes.
(01:13):
this week we wanted to dosomething a little different
from our usual episode.
In the last month, there's beena lot of attention on the death
of Tyre Nichols after a trafficstop that occurred on January
7th, 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Before we discuss the issues,here's the synopsis of the event
(01:33):
and its fallout up to February10th, 2023.
The original police accountstated that at around 8:30 PM a
vehicle operated by Nichols wasobserved driving recklessly.
The car was stopped at theintersection of East Rains and
Ross Road by members of theMemphis Police Department
Scorpion Unit.
(01:55):
Upon contact, the driver wasconfrontational and combative
with officers.
Officers attempted to subdueNichols, but he escaped and fled
on foot into the adjoiningneighborhood.
Additional officers were calledto the area and a search
perimeter was established.
Nichols was discovered sixminutes later and half a mile
(02:16):
away, near the intersection ofBear Creek and CastleGate Lane.
Upon his re-engagement, Nicholscontinued his fight with
officers, which includedattempts to grab their service
weapons.
Nichols was injured during thissecond struggle, so officers
summoned Memphis Fire Departmentmedics.
The medics determined Nicholswas in need of additional care,
(02:37):
and he was transported byambulance to the hospital.
That was the basic officialaccount of the incident
involving Tyre Nichols.
It would've remained that way,memorialized in police records
if Tyre Nichols, afterlanguishing in St.
Francis Hospital in Memphis forthree days hadn't died from his
(02:58):
injuries.
Here's what really happened.
It wouldn't have taken long forMemphis investigators to realize
the department had a problem.
Fixed stationary surveillanceand officer body cameras
recorded the stop and majorparts of the incident.
They did not capture the allegedreckless driving offense on
(03:20):
camera, but the traffic stop wascaptured.
The footage showed one officeropening the driver's side door
of Tyre Nichols car, and with noprior engagement grabbing him
and physically forcing him fromthe car and onto the asphalt
roadway.
Tyree defensively resisted whileasking questions about what was
(03:42):
happening.
Multiple officers screamedorders and obscenities nearly
drowning out Tyree pleas.
He continuously tried to roll tohis back to keep from being
handcuffed.
At one point, an officer steppedforward and announced he was
going to use his taser.
The others released their gripson Tyree Nichols, anticipating
(04:03):
taser deployment.
Tyree stood up quickly as thetaser was fired into his back.
The taser was ineffective and heran southbound on Ross Road into
the adjacent neighborhood.
Tyre Nichols alluded officersfor six minutes, at which point
they saw him running near theintersection of Bear Creek and
CastleGate.
(04:24):
He was about 80 yards from hismother's home.
The officer that spotted Tyreetackled him, and four more
officers from the Scorpion unitconverged at that location.
The officers began beating Tyre,punching him, kicking him, and
Pepper spraying him.
(04:45):
They took turns holding him upand striking him.
Twice they held him up so thatthey could kick him in the face.
He was sprayed with OC spray andhit with a baton repeatedly, all
while handcuffed.
Three body cameras and a CCTVcamera mounted at the top of a
nearby light pole captured thebeating.
(05:08):
What the video did not show wasany aggressive resistance from
Tyree.
None at all.
The video made it clear that theofficer's use of force went far
beyond what was necessary forcapture.
They were punishing TyreeNichols.
After the beating, asemi-conscious Tyree was drug
(05:29):
over to one of the police carsand pushed up into a seated
position while they waited formedics.
During the delay, he lostconsciousness and slumped
sideways to the ground severaltimes.
The officers ordered him to situp, and when he couldn't comply,
they pulled him into a seatedposition.
The first medics arrived in afire engine at 8:41 PM They
(05:53):
recognized he needed furthermedical attention and confirmed
the ambulance response wasneeded, but otherwise did little
to stabilize his worseningcondition.
The ambulance arrived 20 minuteslater and took Tyree to the
hospital.
When he arrived, he was incritical condition.
(06:14):
After the scene cleanup, theofficers involved in the
incident filed police reportsthat did not accurately reflect
the nature of the stop or thesubsequent capture.
They described Tyree Nichols asbeing violently aggressive.
Tyree Nichols died on January10th because of the injury
(06:35):
sustained during the beating.
The death began a cascade ofaction from Memphis City and
county officials.
That same day the TennesseeBureau of Investigations
publicly announced that TyreeNichols died because of injuries
sustained during a use of forceincident with Memphis officers.
All the officers directlyinvolved were suspended, pending
(06:57):
the use of force investigation.
Citizens demanded the departmentrelease the videos.
The county prosecutor issued astatement that said they would
release the videos after theinvestigation was complete.
The Memphis Chief of Police,Cerelyn Davis, having only been
in the job since June, 2021, hadthe uncomfortable task of
(07:20):
describing the incident.
How she characterized what shesaw on the videos was so
different from what we expectedfrom police leadership following
similar incidents that it caughtthe entire nation's attention.
Chief Davis said that what shesaw her officers doing was a,
"vicious prolonged beating.
(07:41):
Adding.
"This is not just a professionalfailing.
This is a failing of basichumanity toward another
individual.
This incident was heinous,reckless, and inhumane.
And in the vein of transparency,when the video is released in
the coming days, you will seethis for yourselves." chief
(08:02):
Davis, reassured protestors thather investigators were working
in cooperation with theTennessee Bureau of
Investigation and the ShelbyCounty District Attorney's
Office.
On January 18th, the Departmentof Justice announced that it too
would be joining the mix.
The US attorney for the WesternDistrict of Tennessee said"last
week, tyree Nichols tragicallydied a few days after he was
(08:25):
involved in an incident whereMemphis Police Department
officers used force during hisarrest.
In cooperation with the fbi,Memphis Field Office, the Civil
Rights Division of theDepartment of Justice has opened
a civil rights investigation."on January 20th, memphis Police
completed its internalinvestigation and released names
(08:49):
of five officers it wasterminating based on violation
of multiple departmentalpolicies, including excessive
use of force, duty to interveneand duty to render aid.
These officers are TadariusBean, Demetrius Haley, Emmett
Martins the third, Desmond MillJr.
(09:11):
And Justin Smith.
On January 23rd, they releasedthe police video to Tyree
Nichols' family.
The family received a littleover an hour of footage from the
officer's cameras and the polemounted unit.
Tyre's stepfather said,"what Isaw on the video today was
horrific.
(09:31):
No father, mother should have towitness what I saw today."
Tyree's mother couldn't bear towatch the video after the first
minute when she heard her soncry out,'What did I do?' One of
the family attorneys said"He wasdefenseless the entire time."
(09:51):
Adding"it was an unadulterated,unabashed, non-stop beating of
this young boy for threeminutes.
That is what we saw in thatvideo.
Not only was it violent, it wassavage." Well-known civil rights
attorney, Ben Crump, afterviewing the footage said, the
video will"remind you of RodneyKing".
(10:16):
On January 26th, the ShelbyCounty Tennessee Criminal Court
released information on theindictment of the five Memphis
police officers.
They were all charged withsecond degree murder, aggravated
assault.
Two charges of aggravatedkidnapping, two charges of
official misconduct, and onecharge of official oppression.
(10:37):
The district attorney explainedthe blanket charges in a
subsequent news conferencesaying,"while each of the five
individuals played a differentrole in the incident in
question, the actions of all ofthem resulted in the death of
Tyre Nichols and they are allresponsible." On January 29th,
(10:57):
the Memphis police chiefannounced she was disbanding the
Scorpion Unit, the acronymScorpions stood for street
crimes operations to restorepeace in our neighborhoods.
On February 3rd, Memphis Policeterminated the employment of a
sixth officer preston Hemphilland released his body camera
video to support that action.
(11:20):
Hemphill was at the scene of theinitial traffic stop and
attempted to use his taser onTyree Nichols.
The taser was ineffective andHemphill watched as Nichols ran
away.
On his video recording, we cansee other officers running after
Nichols.
As Hemphill stood in the streetwatching, he said as if to
himself,"I hope they stomp hisass." Hemphill escaped the
(11:46):
criminal net because he did notrespond to the second scene.
In the Memphis police statementthey fired Hemphill for policy
violations related to the use ofthe taser, his personal conduct
and his truthfulness.
They've also requested thatTennessee decertify him so he
cannot go elsewhere foremployment in law enforcement.
(12:08):
The fire department took actionagainst three of its employees
that had previously beensuspended During investigation.
The emergency medicaltechnicians who responded to the
scene, Robert Long and JimMihael, Sandridge were fired for
failing to render care the 19minutes they were there before
the ambulance arrived.
(12:28):
Their Lieutenant, MichelleWhitaker, who never left the
fire engine as it was parkednearby, was terminated for
dereliction of duty.
(12:51):
Mark, why are we talking aboutthis case today?
Mark (12:55):
I think a lot of people we know have questions.
And as a former police officer Idon't wanna give excuses, there
is no acceptable excuse for whathappened here, but to try to
explain how this could havehappened to make assurances it's
not standard operating procedurefor the majority of police
officers.
And to talk about how this couldbe avoided in the future.
Marcy (13:14):
Let's go through it.
This started ostensibly as atraffic stop for reckless
driving, but the investigatorshave said they haven't been able
to substantiate that.
Do you think that it's possiblethey stopped Nichols for no
reason?
Mark (13:28):
I've heard conjecture that they stopped Nichols for doing
nothing wrong.
And maybe that he was targetedfor some reason.
If you look at the audiorecordings, there's nothing that
I've heard, and I think I'velistened to all of it's been
released that indicated thatthey knew him, that they were
targeting him.
I think there would've been somewords there as they were
expressing things that they, wegot him or this is him, or,
yeah, we got the right guy thatthey would've said something to
(13:51):
indicate that this is the guythey were looking for.
I don't think that's why thisstop happened.
Marcy (13:56):
Some of that conjecture, I think is based on the fact
that one officer sent photos ofTyree after the beating to
several uninvolved people, evenpeople that weren't employees of
the police department.
Mark (14:10):
My personal opinion is that they were just wanting to
share this event look, we beatthe crap outta this guy, kind of
thing.
Which if you think about it, andespecially in what the outcome
here is incredibly stupid.
Marcy (14:22):
Yeah.
Also incredibly immoral.
Was this then a traffic issue?
Mark (14:28):
Yeah, that's my guess.
So reckless driving can bealmost anything the officer can
articulate is dangerous.
In Tennessee, the definition is,and I don't know if they have a
separate municipal code forMemphis.
In Anchorage we had completelydifferent traffic municipal
codes.
But in Tennessee, the definitionof reckless driving is any
person who drives in a, anyvehicle in a willful or wanted
disregard for the safety ofpersons or property.
(14:50):
The driving offense may havebeen small and almost
unrecognizable to somebody whowasn't sitting in the vehicle.
Like he's driving fast oraggressively.
a lot of urban drivers drivelike that.
Maybe he cut an officer off intraffic and it pissed him off.
But it's hard for me to believethey picked Nichols completely
at random.
But actually after watching thevideo, I guess anything's
possible.
(15:11):
What you can see from the videois that the first officer makes
contact is really pissed off.
He jerks the door open and yankstyree out on the ground with no
conversation.
Marcy (15:23):
And that officer is in plain clothes driving an
unmarked car.
As a driver myself, I would beconcerned about whether that was
a legitimate cop that was tryingto stop me.
Mark (15:33):
Yeah.
I can tell you I workedextensively in plain clothes,
and in unmarked vehicles, and wenever, ever made stops in them.
We always had a marked unit, auniformed officer, personnel.
On hand to do those stops.
We might be follow up units, butnever made the stops like that.
Marcy (15:55):
So that wasn't the way you did things.
Mark (15:56):
No.
There's time for fast decisiveaction, but jerking a guy out of
his car with no buildup noconflict prior, isn't something
that I've seen done.
I've made hundreds of trafficstops in my career, and, 99% of
them started with the approachto the window that you see on
tv, the introduction.
Any cop can recite thatintroduction to their sleep.
(16:17):
Good evening, ma.
Sir.
I'm Sergeant Ryan, the AnchoragePolice Department.
Could I see your license,registration, please?
Even if they're driving like anasshole.
We get the formalities done.
And this is true of all theofficers I worked with.
You start a contact with theintroduction, take care of
business.
If the stop goes sideways, whoknows, maybe down the road in
the conversation and theincidents use of force may
(16:38):
become necessary.
But that's an escalationgenerally that the suspect in
the car chose to make.
Marcy (16:46):
Can you give an example of an incident where you did
have to use force to pullsomebody out of a car?
Mark (16:51):
Yeah.
Like immediately.
Yeah.
Okay.
All so one comes to mind.
I'm eating lunch with a coupleother officers at a trusted
restaurant.
It's 4:00 AM in the morning anda woman who's speeding, she's
driving drunk.
She skids on the ice, leaves theroadway over a curb into our
parking lot and collides with mypatrol car I'm sitting at a
table about 40 feet away.
And I can see this woman in sideshot that she looks panic.
(17:14):
She's looking from side to sideand she jams it into reverse and
is trying to back out.
So her tires are spinning so Ijump out.
I run out of the front door andshe's looking at me eyes wide,
and her tires are justscreaming.
Now I have to stop her beforeshe's able to get the car free
and maybe get out back on theroad because it's, let's be
honest, it's a weekend night inthe early morning.
(17:35):
It's likely she's drunk and Iknow that.
she's trying to escape and Ibasically run over, open the
door.
Now keep in mind she's trying toback away from my car.
If she gets traction, she hooksme in that car door.
I'm in trouble physically, soyes, I jerk her out and I put
her on the ground and we cuffher up, but that's an emergency
situation.
She's drunk.
And could hurt people, had shebeen allowed to get away.
(17:56):
She could have hurt me if thecar suddenly got traction.
The difference here is yeah I'mhot, this is adrenaline dump.
But after that take down, Istart talking to her.
We go back down, deescalate thesituation, and I calmly
processed her for dui and shewent to jail.
There was no beating involved.
That's the difference.
(18:16):
You go up, you come back down,
Marcy (18:19):
did she fight with you?
Mark (18:20):
A little, she's struggling with me.
She doesn't want to go to jail.
She knows that she could hit acop car.
Can you imagine the fear?
Even through the drunkenness,you hit a cop car.
I used appropriate force tosubdue her.
She wasn't injured.
Marcy (18:30):
So describe what appropriate force is.
Mark (18:34):
The states regulate the standards for their police
departments in the state.
Everybody has to be certified asa police officer in the state.
And everywhere I'm aware of useswhat they call it, use of force
continuum.
There are variations on the useof force continuum, but everyone
I've ever been exposed to arealong the same theme.
Marcy (18:53):
By force continuum, you mean what level of force is
allowed depends on what level ofresistance that person is using?
Mark (19:01):
Yeah.
And I'll go through'em realquick.
The first level of force isvoice command.
The officer gives someone alawful order.
A lawful order means you have tounder the law obey the order I'm
giving you, for example, is thatif I'm investigating a crime and
you're committing a crime, and Itell you to stop, that's a
lawful order.
You have to stop.
The first is basically mypresence and my voice.
(19:24):
Second level is soft, empty handcontrol.
For example, the person you givethat lawful order to doesn't
stop.
an officer might grab a personby their arm or wrist and or
block them from leaving.
Soft empty hand control isgenerally for defensive
resistance.
Like they're walking away, theystart pulling away.
Defensive resistance is whatTyree Nichols exhibited during
(19:46):
this stop.
Third level is hard, empty handcontrol techniques.
So this is resistance as moreforceful and aggressive.
The subject's pulling violentlyaway.
The subject's bawling hands,like coming at you, like he's
gonna hit or kick the officer.
Depending on the aggressivenessof this, hard empty hand control
could be an armbar takedown,which was one of my favorite
(20:09):
moves for somebody who'sviolent.
Strikes that fend off theattack.
Strikes to nerve centers, likecommon perial strikes that could
potentially stunt a suspect.
So those are basically controltechniques.
It's called hard, empty handcontrol because you're not using
a weapon, you're just grabbing'em.
You're striking them trying toget them to comply.
Now, the fourth level isintermediate weapons.
(20:30):
That's when the baton, thetaser, the OC spray can come in.
These are generally used againsthigher end, aggressive and
aggravated aggressiveresistance.
Some use of force policies allowOC and taser for defensive
resistance, but most don't, andours didn't.
If you are just defensivelytrying to pull away hitting
somebody with a baton hittingthem with oc can seem punitive.
(20:51):
And that's why most policieshave moved those higher up on
the force continuum.
The fifth level aboveintermediate weapons is deadly
force.
The kind of situation where thesuspect has a weapon and is
doing something that endangersthe lives of people or officers.
Obviously the response would bean officer using a firearm as an
example of deadly force.
But certain strikes, a batonstrike to the head is also
(21:15):
usually considered deadly forcebecause, you get hit with a
baton that's, 24 inches ofhickory it could crack your
skull potentially endangeringyour life.
It's important to say that mostdepartments require use of force
to be reasonable.
That just because youtechnically could use a maximum
force against a certain level ofaggression doesn't mean you
should.
In essence what that is if Icome upon a 95 year old woman
(21:36):
who's holding a baseball bat andsays, I'm gonna hit you with
this baseball bat, if I pickedher up and slammed her on the
ground.
That would be excessive undermost use of force continuums.
However, if this is a big guywho looks me in the eye, squares
off, raises the bat and said,I'm gonna beat you number one,
that's a deadly force.
But if but if I picked him upand slammed him on the ground,
(21:56):
that would be a good use offorce because it meets the level
of threat.
Like I said, the 95 year oldwoman's unlikely to be able to
beat you to death with aaluminum bat, even if she says
she is.
And that's a similar to a reallife situation that I know about
from my real police careers issomebody who's a little bit too
much not way, but a little bittoo much force in affecting the
arrest of an elderly person.
(22:17):
And although it was within theproper use of force.
What was found is that wasexcessive force because the age
and the real, the ability toproject that harm was just not
there.
It calls on somebody's judgmentto make an assessment of a real
threat.
And what is the appropriatelevel to gain compliance without
going overboard.
Marcy (22:38):
On the force continuum, where do the beanbag guns fall?
Mark (22:43):
same as a baton strike.
If you're in the position whereyou're shooting somebody with a
beanbag, there's a pretty highlevel of threat there.
That's a guy potentially with aknife or some weapon that could,
if he moved, he could projectthat weapon against you.
Now, beanbag are generallyinappropriate for a guy with a
firearm because that guy shootssome, shoots and it's too late,
right?
beanbag's, same level of forceas a baton.
(23:04):
Now, not everybody who isaggressively resisting, should
be hit with a baton.
Marcy (23:09):
So it's not just about the amount of resistance that's
being expressed by a person,it's, there's like the totality
of the circumstances that youhave to take into consideration.
Mark (23:20):
Yes.
And that's why being a policeofficer is a complicated thing.
And it's also why in a lot of,for years, and this is changing
now, police officers have beengiven a lot of latitude to make
that discretion because you haveto make a split second decision.
And the police officers havebeen given a lot of latitude to
make those decisions and not besecond guessed.
But I think we're moving out ofthat now with incidents like
(23:40):
this.
Marcy (23:42):
If the level of force authorized is based on
resistance, then how do youcharacterize what Tyree Nichols
did during this initial stop?
Mark (23:50):
Yeah.
The video clearly shows Tyreeexhibiting what I would call
classic defensive resistance.
Of the times I've encounteredresistance, this is the most
common, it's the lowest level.
They don't wanna go intohandcuffs, they want to pull
away.
They're questioning why this ishappening, the legality of
what's happening.
But what doesn't happen is therearen't any strikes, no punches,
kicks or going for weapons.
(24:11):
That happens, but it's much lesscommon than somebody not wanting
to go to jail and pulling away.
that's where the line is.
That would justify a higherlevel use of force.
And Tyre Nichols in this videoDoes not show a higher level of
force.
He's scared, first of all,probably cuz he was pulled over
by a bunch of guys in plainclothes and unmarked cars.
He doesn't know what's going on.
These aren't, these guys aren'tacting like cops.
(24:32):
He knows from television.
They're swearing at him.
They're ordering, and he'sscared.
Adrenaline dumps going on andhe's trying to turn away and
assess the situation.
And they're not trying toexplain things.
They're yelling obscenities athim.
Marcy (24:45):
Where were his hands?
Cuz one of the concerns that Igather is that if somebody's
hiding their hands while they'reon the ground and resisting the
handcuffs, you're worried aboutthem reaching for a gun in their
waistband.
Mark (24:56):
Yeah.
You're gonna worry about that onthis stop, right?
And one of the things is hishands are down along his sides,
and it is a concern there's aweapon, but what he's really
trying to do is defensivelyresist and he's trying to
leverage his hands on the groundso that he can turn towards them
and talk to them and basicallyquestion them about what's going
on.
Yes, there is a concern he couldhave a weapon, and that's
(25:16):
something that an officer canarticulate, but this is not, if
you watch this thing, he isdefensively resisting what you
would expect to have happen.
He doesn't go for a weapon.
He's trying to turn over andkeep from being handcuffed,
which is, when there is astruggle to get somebody in
handcuffs that's what alwayshappens.
Marcy (25:34):
What's your opinion about that first part of that stop?
Mark (25:39):
My opinion based on what I saw is classic, what they call
contempt of cop.
Here's a police officer who isgreatly offended by what
happened.
Maybe he got cut off in traffic,or the, he saw the guy speeding
and how dare you do that?
And the initiating problem isthis officer was pissed off.
He did not communicateeffectively.
The obscenities being thrownaround really, people question
(25:59):
the legitimacy of what you'redoing when officers are talking
like that, right?
and his defensive resisting, hedidn't just go quietly into
cuffs on the ground, which iswhat they expected.
The defensive resistance furtherpissed them off.
Everybody seemed pissed.
I don't know why.
You think as police officers,especially working at night, you
get used to being sworn at.
And I, man, I think the controltactics here were inexcusable.
(26:23):
There's five officers there.
No one was willing to get down.
No one used the one-on-onecontrol techniques that you're
taught.
Pin them down and use force toforce'em into handcuffs.
I don't know.
They must have missed those daysat the academy.
But I have never personally seensuch ineffectual control,
particularly with so manyofficers present.
This guy's 145 pounds.
(26:44):
He's a tall guy, but he's 145pounds.
And I have never seen so manyofficers with so little control
on a subject So I'm gonna saysomething surprising.
Most individual officers cantake most people into custody
all alone if they're willing tobeat them into submission.
But it is very difficult for asingle officer to force an
uncooperative suspect inhandcuffs by himself.
(27:07):
And that's so no one gets hurt.
There has to be at least two,sometimes more officers who've
been trained to work togetheruse those one-on-one control
techniques and taken, evencombative subject into custody.
You know what should havehappened here is he's pinned
down, takes control of a wrist,and the second one works to the
(27:29):
other arm and works'em back intohandcuffs.
I'm thinking about the timesthat me and a single other
officers took down more, morethan one suspect and struggled
on the ground with them.
And we do it all the time.
And I don't know what theirreluctance to get on the ground
where this guy was.
But I just, I can't believe thelack of control here.
Marcy (27:47):
Tasers are my pet peeve.
What about this taser they triedto use?
They shouldn't have used it,right?
Mark (27:54):
No, and you can see exactly why in that clip, right?
Tasers have their uses andbenefits, but in this case, the
first use of the taser was indrive stun mode.
So people that don't know taserscan be used in two ways.
Tasers can be fired and infiring them, you have a
cartridge on the front of thetaser and two fish hook like
prongs shoot out from the frontof the taser.
(28:14):
With good probe hits, whichmeans they have, they're in the
body in separate areas.
All the muscles in the body lockup between the two probes.
So you want a little bit ofseparation in those probes and
that caused immobilization.
I've had bad taser deployment,just like what happened on the
video.
I'll give you an example of oneof my bad deployments.
The guy had on a tight nylonjacket and the top of my probe
(28:37):
skimmed off his back on thenylon just skimmed off into
space, right?
And and it was ineffective.
it did nothing to him.
Okay.
The second way to use a taser iswhat's called drive stun mode.
You don't have a cartridge onthe front.
No fish hooks, and the probesdon't shoot out this is just
like using your taser, like acattle prod.
So it's painful.
(28:58):
And the reason people use itlike that is cuz it's painful.
It can be used to gainsubmission.
So somebody will do what you saybecause you're cattle prodding
them.
The real problem with drive studmode is it does nothing to
immobilize the subject.
Most officers I work with,myself included, never use
drives stun after the first fewapplications, because it caused
one or two things.
Either the subject you're tasinggets really pissed off or it
(29:22):
cause'em the panic.
And neither are good foraccomplishing the goal of taking
someone into custody.
Marcy (29:28):
You think that's what happened with Tyre?
Mark (29:31):
On the first stop I'm watching the officers drive stun
him.
they're screaming at him, andthis guy's just going up, he's
panicking.
He gets drive stunned, oh myGod, that hurts.
And what the hell's going onwith me, kind of thing.
And that's what I read from thatstop is the drive stun did
nothing to subdue him, and itonly drove his panic higher.
Marcy (29:49):
And you think that they let him go so they could
specifically tase him with theprobes?
Mark (29:54):
There's not a question in my mind.
If you watch the video there's apause when he says he is gonna
tase.
There's a pause, all theofficers let go and some of them
step back.
And just before that, theofficer puts the cartridge on
and then he fires taser.
Obviously the probes don't makesolid contact.
I don't know if they stuck inhis jacket or where they went.
Nichols gets up and runs away,and the reason the officers
(30:17):
don't immediately grab him as hegets up and starts to move is
because they're afraid ofgetting caught up in the wires
and getting shocked themselves.
This whole thing is a fiasco.
You have a pissed off cop, badcommunication, horrible control
tactics.
And now Nichols goes running offinto the night.
Let's review from hisperspective.
He could have been driving likean asshole, but he's not aware
(30:37):
of that.
Like so many people do, so manypeople do.
Here's a guy who purports to bean officer and doesn't even give
him the good evening.
My name is speech.
Like you see on tv, he's notwearing a uniform.
He's not in a marked car.
All Nichols knows is beingpulled to the ground.
Yeah.
They're giving him like officerlike commands.
But they're also doing it undera barrage of obscenities.
(31:00):
And he's saying what ishappening?
What did I do?
He knows that these cops aren'tacting the way they're supposed
to act.
One minute, he's driving hiscar, and the next he's on the
pavement.
He's wondering, is this life ordeath, to him, it sure must have
seemed like it.
And of course he's gonna flee atthe first opportunity.
He doesn't know where all thisis going.
And you, we know from recentevents, Nichols has reason to
(31:20):
fear for his life.
And when he is able to breakaway, he moved as if he was
running for his life because hewas.
And then the cops have to set upa perimeter and run to try and
find him.
I worked at night and this is agreat aspect of the job.
You set up the perimeter and nowit's hide and seek adult style,
right?
So we're looking for a guy inthe perimeter, but these guys
(31:41):
are already pissed, right?
They don't have to go chasingafter a guy.
The pause doesn't do anythingfor their outlook.
I guess none of them resetduring the pause because six
minutes later one of themtackles him on a street corner,
and it's less than a hundredyards from his mother's house.
And those guys are ready forsome retribution.
This isn't really funny, but itwas Chris Rock that made the
video where he said, if copshave to run to catch you,
(32:03):
they're bringing an ass kickingwith them.
He was joking, but apparently inMemphis, the officers took that
to heart.
Up until that point, I'dpersonally seen everything that
had happened in my career.
I've seen a pissed off cop.
I've seen the cops that arereluctant to physically engage
when that is re what is requiredto end a situation.
But I've never seen cops beatinga suspect like that, holding him
(32:26):
up, striking him, and theofficers in Memphis did so with
fists, with a baton.
And they hit'em in the head.
This isn't the movies.
People die.
They get brain damage from blowsto the head.
Experienced cops should knowthat.
This is where those guys boughtthe murder charge.
They stand him up and just beat'em because they're angry.
Marcy (32:48):
You said that the use of OC on the second scene was to
punish Nichols?
Mark (32:54):
With my insight experience.
When I watched the video, thesecond scene, one of the first
things I fixated on I had a gutreaction about the use of OC
spray.
Nichols was sprayed in the faceat very close range, at least a
couple times.
In my experience OC is reallygood for one thing, aggressive
dogs.
Also in my experience, onlyrookies use oc.
(33:14):
I used OC a few times in thefirst couple of years on patrol
and never after that.
I'm talking about the personalOC canister.
I did use the tank OC for civilunrest a couple of times, but
that's different.
Marcy (33:26):
Why didn't you use oc?
Mark (33:29):
It wasn't just me that didn't use OC.
if you're in uniform, you'regonna wear your OC because it's
issued gear.
There was one incident.
I know that one of my coworkers,OC canister, was so old that he
never used it.
It was so old.
The bottom bursts from normalwear and tear like getting in
and outta his car for years.
The bottom of his littlealuminum can of OC popped
(33:50):
because of just wear.
This wasn't because no one everqualified as a good OC target.
It was because the cleanup was apain in the ass.
It went everywhere.
In the field you just couldn'tadequately wash it off.
Most of the time if you had aguy who fought, resisted, et
cetera, like I describedearlier, you could talk him
down.
Things would become tranquil.
(34:10):
Then you could process thepaper.
You might take the guy for bailhearing and remand them to jail.
If you oc to somebody, youaren't gonna get a decent
interview from that suspect yousprayed.
And sometimes you want to get agood interview.
And the reason for that is he orshe, they're miserable.
You are miserable too.
All you want to do is get rid ofthem.
And you better like it spicybecause that stuff's gonna
(34:31):
linger in your car for the restof your shift, even if you wipe
everything down.
I remember being on what is inthe business called a pig pile.
A group of cops trying towrestle a large combative man
into handcuffs.
We had rookies with us, androokie did what this, but what
he is trained to do, heannounces spray.
His field training officer saidvery harshly.
(34:53):
Do not spray.
If you spray, I'm gonna shove itup your ass.
So no spray was used.
So we got that guy intohandcuffs and off we went.
The whole point of that is tosay the Memphis crew used spray
the way they did because theyknew he's going to the hospital
and they wouldn't have to cleanhim up.
Marcy (35:12):
After the beating, the officers propped Tyre up against
one of their cars.
The medics come, but they donothing.
Mark (35:21):
So the way medical calls usually go, particularly at
night, if it's something thepolice can help with, they're
sent to the call because they'llusually be the first to arrive.
Because we're not asleep whenthe call comes in.
The next will be the fire enginewith the firefighters
cross-trained as EMTs orparamedics or a board.
And the ambulances last.
In cities, ambulance crewscommonly run all night and are
(35:42):
often in use and have to clear acall before they get there.
So in this case, in Memphis, thefire engine arrives about 20
minutes before the ambulance.
The paramedics in that role, thejob, is to assess the patient
and give what aid they could.
Considering the nature ofNichols' injuries, there
probably wasn't much that thesetwo paramedics off the fire rig
could do.
And I suspect they didn't wantto get too close to him because
(36:04):
he'd been bathed in oc.
Whatever The truth is, it's acautionary tale for EMTs because
not covering the basics got themand their lieutenant fired.
Marcy (36:14):
Tyre Nichols didn't die for three days.
Are you surprised that theinvestigation was started after
that?
Mark (36:23):
No.
There'd be a time involved wherethere is some communication.
In my roles as a street sergeantand especially as detective
sergeant, I had pretty goodrelations with hospital staff.
I popped into the ERs quite abit, took a look at what was
going on with some of our casesand calls, especially when I was
a sex assault sergeant also.
And.
We would get calls if there wassomething the docs or the staff
(36:44):
didn't like they'd call us, forexample, I get a patient that we
had just sent to the hospitaland the doc, they take the
clothes off, and the woman isjust covered with bruises and
they wanna know, did you seethis?
Did you investigate this?
And so I had to go over thereand talk with'em about what we
saw and what happened.
Same thing with if there's useof force issues they would call
and want to talk to somebody.
(37:04):
The er docs aren't shy aboutasking questions about mechanism
of injury if they get somebodyin there and
Marcy (37:09):
uh,
Mark (37:09):
nasty car wreck.
Well, do we have any idea of thespeed?
This kind of thing?
The same thing with violentattacks or even, police use of
force.
If you look at Tyree Nicholsphotos when he was in the
hospital bed, It is obvious thathe had been beaten very badly.
Keep in mind they, they kickedhim in the head, in the face.
So his head is just swollen.
(37:30):
I think it's likely thatsomebody at the hospital called
to report the status to Memphispolice, or, when he died, the
medical examiner either took thecall and they alerted the PD.
Marcy (37:40):
This case really shows the importance of body cameras
for resolving situations likethis, but digital records don't
always go against the police.
And you've talked about thebenefit of having audio
recordings or videos forinvestigations.
Mark (37:55):
Yeah.
In past episodes I've mentionedworking with internal affairs
and other detective unitsbecause I was in Vice and I had
specialized equipment.
Working cases on other cops is ahorrible experience and one that
I would never have volunteeredfor.
The further along I go and thefurther I get from those cases,
the more perspective I have onhow essential that kind of
(38:16):
accountability is.
Most of the internal recordingsI was looking at as a sergeant
were just simple audiorecordings from my officers or
detectives during contacts.
Marcy (38:28):
Like recordings made by officers during a traffic stop
or an interview.
Mark (38:33):
Yeah, exactly.
So when I was a rookie,recorders were enormous,
physically enormous.
We would take a tape, decks andrecord really important
interviews, like homicides andso forth from witnesses in the
field but not much else.
It quickly evolved as devicesgot smaller and less expensive
and then digitized.
They're more user friendly tostore the data.
(38:55):
At some point, all of the newerguys began recording almost
every traffic stop and contactand this was big for resolving
complaints
Marcy (39:04):
like citizens complaining about officers.
Mark (39:07):
Yeah.
So most complaints came throughinternal affairs.
And internal affairs kept, whatinterested them, and the rest
filtered out to unitsupervisors.
Complaints weren't uncommon andmost could be categorized into
two things.
Questions or criticism aboutwhat the officer had done.
Many of these people are lookingfor a different answer than what
they got from the officers.
Then their complaints ofunprofessional behavior or
(39:29):
rudeness.
So the first category usuallyentailed me explaining, our law
or policy and, most oftenreinforcing what the officer or
detective had done.
My guys, especially as adetective, knew what the policy
procedure was and we followed itall the time.
So basically I had to reaffirm,yes, they knew what they were
talking about.
Yes, this is what we do and soforth.
(39:50):
But on occasion I'd catch errorsthat we made.
And, the good thing there is wewere able to fix those most of
the time.
The second category, the rude onprofessional behavior was where
the audio recordings often camein handy.
Marcy (40:02):
Is that like complaining that the officer had yelled or
swore at them?
Mark (40:07):
Yeah.
I really don't like thepotential of the, he said, she
said in that situation.
When I first started looking atthese when I was a new sergeant
that was like, oh God, how am Igonna prove or disprove what was
said?
But to my surprise, most of thetime I had pretty good audio of
the contact.
And the ones I was listening towere rarely out of bounds.
Sometimes the officer get alittle short.
(40:28):
And invariably the worstsounding complaints often turned
out to be the easiest to handle.
Marcy (40:33):
People were exaggerating with the officer had done.
Mark (40:35):
Yeah.
Either that or outright lied.
I learned from my night shiftsergeant thanks Bill Richardson.
That the best thing to do is leta person who wanted to vent
about the police do just that.
in those cases, I'd get on thephone and I'd hunker down and
let the storm blow itself out.
Sometimes these people justwanted to have somebody listen
to them.
And then I'd talk with'em aboutwhat happened.
(40:55):
And they were, oftentimes it wasvery reasonable.
After, like I said, the stormblew itself out.
sometimes these people werelooking to get, the officer
wrote them a ticket intotrouble, and they'd be blow
hards, saying things like, if Ididn't take care of it they're
gonna have all of our badges.
Well, nobody ever had my badge,and a lot of people said they
were gonna.
My thing was I'd listened to himand after listening I'd assured
(41:16):
the complainant that I reviewall the pertinent inform.
Oftentimes I'd let drop that,these officers carry audio
recorders and the whole thingwas caught on tape.
Then I'd promised to get backwith them with any questions I
had or what my conclusion aboutthe complaint was.
When they found out there waslikely to be a recording, people
would often change their tone orsound different as I talked to
(41:38):
them.
So then I'd review the tape andnine times outta 10 the contact
was markedly different from whatthe complainant described.
Many times there were outrightlies about what the complainant
was saying that the officer hadsaid, or the tone, or,
obscenities he or she used.
In a lot of cases where theperson outright lied, I wouldn't
be able to reach them on, followup calls nor would they call me
(41:58):
back.
Marcy (42:01):
So the dreaded audio recording isn't that bad?
Mark (42:04):
No.
I had a couple that, hey, thisis, questionable, you really
shouldn't have said this, or Ihad some this isn't the
procedure anymore.
Procedures change typecorrections.
For the most part, the officerswere used to making the
recordings.
And most of the time theysounded great.
when it didn't sound great, alot of times it was caused by
the complainant's demeanor.
And when an officer's direct andsounds terse or commanding a lot
(42:26):
of times that's okay in our lineof work, that's not rude.
That's sometimes necessary.
Marcy (42:32):
What about dreading body cameras?
Mark (42:35):
Yeah I was really worried about it.
I never had to work with thebody camera.
I was worried how it wouldchange liabilities as a police
officer in terms of notfollowing policy procedure
exactly.
I was worried there'd be a lotof Monday morning
quarterbacking.
But, after my experience withaudio I was less concerned.
I was worried that body camerawould make a, an impossible for
(42:58):
an officer to make a decision.
This is a profession where attimes you have to make instant
decisions.
To have every move scrutinizedthrough one narrow lens was
disturbing to me.
But what I think we've seen isthat just like the audio
officers are mostly doing theright thing and the real value
in the body cams is confidencethat we can catch the kind of
(43:19):
organizational cancer that wesee displayed in the Memphis
incident.
Marcy (43:25):
Do you think that video from Memphis is just the tip of
the iceberg?
Mark (43:30):
yes, absolutely.
What we've seen with video isthat eventually officers wearing
them relax and it's business asusual.
Now the horrifying thing aboutMemphis is nobody's regulating
things that are being done orthe things that are being said.
None of them, even the officersthat aren't directly involved
around them were like, oh shit,this is bad.
(43:51):
It does not seem like this is anunusual event for them.
And it's probably not outsidethe norm, unfortunately.
So now my opinion about bodycams has changed.
Where they help the officers.
Great.
Maybe it will improve publicconfidence.
Where it exposes problems withofficer conduct.
Great.
They can course correct.
Marcy (44:10):
And the video is important because it shows the
divergence between what theofficers said happened and
reality.
Mark (44:17):
Yeah.
And that's really importantevidence because it shows the
intent.
What the officers wrote in thereports that Nichols did would
justify their higher use offorce.
They said he made an attempt totake an officer's weapon.
That action justifies a veryhigh level of force,
particularly if the person doingthe gun grab is likely to
overpower the officer.
Marcy (44:38):
What do you think of folks that are saying all
specialty units should bedisbanded?
Mark (44:45):
I think the people who say things like that don't
appreciate what a bad idea thatis.
First of all, there are allkinds of specialty units that
people accept that do criticalwork in our cities and our
towns.
These are two varied to give acomplete list, but, you've heard
of'em, crime scene, sex assault,robbery, homicide units, search
and rescue teams.
I think what people are talkingabout is they want to disband
(45:06):
all the specialty units that arestreet focused.
Historically we've had somepretty notorious police teams.
I think of LAPD's crash unitthat comes to mind.
Crash is an acronym that stoodfor community response against
street hoodlums.
That group was rife with thekind of problems I suspect
Scorpion might have in Memphis.
So maybe we should just do awayall the units with aggressive
(45:29):
acronyms.
Marcy (45:29):
Some people have been bandying about the need for
police culture change.
Mark (45:35):
Yeah.
I think that some departmentsprobably do need a drastic
culture change and others not somuch.
I think the key is training.
Having the right instructors,the right instruction all the
way from the academy and intothe field.
Supervision.
You have to have goodsupervision.
When I became a supervisor, myoutlook shifted and broadened.
We need good supervisors who cancatch problems early, before
(45:58):
they become ingrained and out ofcontrol police culture.
Marcy (46:03):
You supervised a street level specialty unit.
Mark (46:06):
That's why I'm sold that not all these units should be
disbanded.
My feeling on specialty units isthat they can be in what is
termed in military terminology,a force multiplier.
For the last few years of mycareer, I was given a unit with
seven investigators and a widelatitude to define our focus.
What I did was I looked at whatother successful anti-crime and
(46:27):
crime suppression units weredoing, and I basically borrowed
from them I divided that unitinto two areas.
First investigative support,using the skills and contacts
from my detective days weassisted in helping solve and
helping move forward some of thecity's most pressing
investigations and crimes.
Second I picked targetedprojects.
(46:49):
With the help of crime mapping Iresearched the city's hotspots
and we came up with creativesolutions, how to solve some of
those.
The whole thing would take toolong to fully cover now, but my
small unit was able to achievethe closure several of
Anchorage's most crime-riddendangerous businesses in a
relatively short amount of time.
Marcy (47:08):
And that is a very different approach from what
patrol usually does or has thecapacity to do.
Mark (47:14):
Yeah, usually patrol is.
Completely responsive.
They run call to call.
They don't have the time orgenerally the equipment or
expertise to work a communityhotspot like we did.
And we were very successful.
We closed down the worst doperflop hotel in town.
A huge building like multistories called the Inlet Inn.
What caught our attention ispatrol went there hundreds of
(47:36):
times a year for all kinds ofcrime you can think about
murders, robberies, sex assault.
My unit, we took a couple ofmonths and we surveilled the
area.
We looked at what was going on.
We built the case and wepressured the owner to close it.
And they did, and we worked withthem to achieve that closure and
to keep the problems in thatparticular hotel from spreading.
(48:00):
Now that den of villainy is aquiet parking lot with zero
police calls.
Okay.
So back to the force multiplier.
Here's another example.
We had an after hours club.
It popped up as a hotspotbecause people were doing all
kinds of violent crimes in thearea, in the wee morning hours
and in the area justsurrounding, it wasn't in the
(48:21):
bar zone or anything, so it wasreally an island in its own.
I was able to call the buildingowner who was leasing space to
the club.
It was upstairs in if you livein Anchorage's Mountain View
area.
So I was able to call thebuilding owner, and at first the
owner didn't wanna do anything.
Oh, the cops are calling.
Who cares?
They're just doing theirbusiness.
And I'm like, no, this is aserious problem.
There are crimes being occurredin your building and around your
(48:43):
building.
And they wouldn't be if youweren't open.
And these things weren't goingon.
So what I did, I knew it wasgonna motivate him, is I had
gotten permission to leverageinsurance coverage against some
of these owners.
And I told them, I know who yourinsurance carrier is, and I'm
going to inform them of some ofthese crimes that you are
(49:03):
helping to create, helping tohouse and some of the
surrounding crimes.
And we'll see what happens.
That business owner said, you'reright, we'll take care of it.
I'm gonna give them evictionnotice and they will stop
operation immediately.
Our night shift patrol had beenworking collateral crimes from
that club for weeks before itcaught my attention.
They had been going there, theytook care of the call, they went
(49:25):
away, a little research from meand one pointed phone call and
it was over.
So that's an example of why Isay a blanket ban on specialty
street units is a bad idea.
I didn't beat anyone to achievethat, but we were very
effective.
The brass loved what we did, andas I was retiring, they planned
to double the size of my eightman unit while retaining the
(49:47):
same areas of focus that I haddefined a few years prior.
As we wrap up, I wanted to saysomething about these cases and
the breach of trust.
There are almost a millionpolice officers in this country.
In my experience, the professionis an honorable one, filled with
honorable men and women thatcare deeply about the
communities they police.
(50:08):
The damage that these cases doto public trust is immeasurable.
They destroy our credibility andour legitimacy.
My hope is that we can rebuildthe trust in the coming years.
I
Marcy (50:20):
am sure that there will continue to be more that comes
out as these cases roll forward.
I hope that Tyree Nichols'family gets the justice that
they deserve.
Tyre was a talented artist andhe didn't deserve to be
murdered.
(50:44):
Please rate and review CrimeRaven wherever you listen.
It helps us get better and ithelps other listeners find us.
Also, if you email us ascreenshot of your review or
send us a question or a case,we'll send you a promo code for
$10 off our very coolmerchandise.
Send them tocrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
(51:08):
And if we use your question oryour case in an episode, we'll
send you a free Crime Ravent-shirt.
Remember, email us atcrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for listening.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to Crime Raven, so you
don't miss an episode Pleaserecommend us to your friends
too.
Check our website atcrimeraven.com crime Raven
(51:31):
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