Clarification: The total number of officers facing discipline is 13, including six who have been terminated and seven more who will face charges of policy violation. A city representative corrected her earlier statement on the number of officers involved.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — Seven more Memphis Police officers will be issued a “statement of charges” for policy violations in the Tyre Nichols case, the city’s chief legal officer said Tuesday.
That would mean a total of 13 officers are facing discipline in the case, including six who already had been terminated, City Attorney Jennifer Sink said in a statement to Memphis City Council.
Sink said the city is not prepared to identify the remaining officers because the investigation is continuing. She believes those charges would be issued at the end of this week so that the hearings could be held and information could be made public next week.
That information would be uploaded to a city website once it is available.
These officers will go through a hearing to see what their punishment will be, if any. They are not criminally charged. This is city-level discipline.
Sink said the investigation was not limited to officers who were on the scene on Jan. 7.
“Every situation involves multiple officers and personnel, so the investigation has been very thorough,” Sink said. “They have examined every person who was, or should have been, involved in this process in determining whether there was some kind of violation of a policy that was committed.”
“About 10” Memphis Police officers responded to the Jan. 7 traffic stop in Hickory Hill, Police Chief C.J. Davis told city council Tuesday.
She did not have an exact number and did not disclose the name of another officer who had already been placed on leave pending an investigation.
Council requested that Davis and her team compile a specific number of officers involved and the timeline as to when the investigations against them began.
“A lot went wrong on January 7,” Chief Davis told city council members Tuesday, one month to the day after the violent traffic stop that led to the death of Tyre Nichols.
Davis said she had reviewed the officers implicated in the case, and said they did not have issues that would have raised red flags when they entered the SCORPION Unit.
Davis blamed a lack of supervision on the former officers now accused of second-degree murder in Nichols’ death following a brutal traffic stop.
She also blamed the officers’ “wolf pack mentality, egos” and other issues. Officer training, though, was not part of the problem.
“These officers were given exceptional training, more training than they had in the past,” Davis said.
“We continue to grieve for the family of Tyre Nichols, also for our city, our department and all those that are impacted around the country around these types of senseless losses,” she said.
Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., Justin Smith, Demetrius Haley, and Tadarrius Bean have been added to the county’s Giglio list, a list kept by the district attorney of compromised officers.
