Crump said the SCORPION units and similar around the country incite more violence than they prevent.
— The attorneys representing Tyre Nichols’ family in the aftermath of the 29-year-old’s death at the hands of Memphis Police penned an open letter to the Memphis Police Department Thursday, calling for an end to SCORPION Squads and similar policing.
In the letter, Crump said the five officers accused of killing Nichols were part of the SCORPION unit, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods, and should not have been conducting traffic stops.
Read Ben Crump’s full statement here:
“Pro-active policing” or “saturation unit policing,” whether the officers are in unmarked cars wearing tactical vests or “jump-out boys” in plain clothes and undercover, is defined by several common and dangerous components. These types of aggressive units are used in cities across the country and are intended to flood troubled areas with officers to stem high crime. But what we’ve seen this month in Memphis and for many years in many places, is that the behavior of these units can morph into “wolf pack” misconduct that takes away a person’s liberty or freedom to move, akin to a kidnapping. Officers tend to focus on Black and Brown members of the community and feel empowered to conduct “pre-textual” stops, or stops without probable cause, saying they are proactively looking for guns or drugs. These often aggressive encounters flat out destruct trust between police and the communities they are sworn to protect and serve, but as we saw in the tragic and unnecessary death of Tyre Nichols, can also lead to physical injury or death when the culture of unchecked, pro-active policing overtakes common sense.
We have learned from reports this week that the 5 now-fired officers involved in Tyre’s death were members of the Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION squad, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods.
