Array
When Memphis officials released video footage of the beating of Tyre Nichols, they did so in an attempt at transparency.
But that footage — which showed five officers brutally beating the 29-year-old Black man and leaving him with injuries that eventually led to his death — has since spurred even more questions.
The five officers, all of whom are Black, were fired and face criminal charges.
Here are five unanswered questions about the Tyre Nichols case.
Why was Nichols stopped?
When news of Nichols’s death first came out, the Memphis Police Department released a statement that said he was initially stopped for reckless driving.
In the harrowing video footage, one officer can be heard telling the others that “He [Nichols] cut through traffic.”
Officers can also be heard saying “He’s on something.”
“He higher than a motherf—er,” one officer said after the violent beating.
“He high as a kite,” another added.
But Memphis Chief of Police Cerelyn Davis later said there was no evidence to corroborate the reckless driving claims.
An independent autopsy conducted by Nichols’s family attorney, Ben Crump, did not specify if Nichols was high at the time of the incident.
It’s also unclear why the initial stop turned violent in the first place.
In the first of four videos released, body camera footage shows officers approaching Nichols’s car with their weapons drawn, and one officer immediately pulling Nichols from behind the wheel.
Some have begun to question if there is additional – or missing – body camera footage that has not yet been released that would provide answers to these questions.
How often did Scorpion task force stops turn violent?
Nichols was stopped by members of the Scorpion task force — a unit of officers designed to patrol specific areas of the city and focus on auto thefts and gang-related or drug-related crimes.
The unit launched in November 2021. By January 2022, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland (D) said the unit was responsible for 566 arrests and had seized $103,000 in cash, recovering 270 vehicles and 253 weapons between October 2021 and Jan.
