Memphis fire department fires three employees in Tyre Nichols case (updated)

SandRidge Energy

30/01/2023 16:49

(Adds context, background about traffic stop)
    By Alyssa Pointer
       MEMPHIS, Tenn., Jan 30 (Reuters) - Three members of the
Memphis Fire Department who responded to the fatal police
confrontation with Tyre Nichols were dismissed on Monday after
investigators found he was beaten and left handcuffed on the
ground without medical attention for nearly 15 minutes.
    According to a fire department statement, emergency medical
technicians Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge failed to assess
Nichols' condition when they arrived, while fire Lieutenant
Michelle Whitaker, who drove them to the scene, remained in her
vehicle.
    An internal review of their conduct found that all three
fire department employees "violated numerous (fire department)
policies and protocols," the agency said in a statement issued
by Fire Chief Gina Sweat. 
    The terminations came as the Memphis Police Department
disclosed that seven of its officers had been relieved of duty
for their roles in the confrontation that led to the Jan. 10
death of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man. That tally included
five officers who were dismissed from the force and charged last
week with murder. 
    The five officers charged in the case are Black. Lawyers for
Nichols' family have cast the beating as the latest instance of
an African American brutalized as a result of racially biased
policing practices that profile people of color - even when the
officers involved are non-white.
    A sixth officer - identified as Preston Hemphill - was
suspended with pay pending a hearing, and a seventh officer who
was not immediately identified was also relieved of duty without
pay, the police department said. No criminal charges have been
filed against Hemphill, 26, who joined the force in 2018, or
against the seventh, unnamed officer. 
    A police department spokesperson declined to comment on why
those suspensions were not announced earlier.
    Police Chief Cerelyn Davis has said an unspecified number of
officers besides the five initially implicated remained under
investigation for policy infractions stemming from the arrest of
Nichols during a Jan. 7 traffic stop.
    The five officers dismissed on Jan. 20 - Justin Smith,
Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Demetrius Haley and
Tadarrius Bean - were charged Thursday with second-degree
murder, assault, kidnapping, official misconduct and oppression
in the fatal beating of Nichols. 
    Hemphill, who is white, wore the body-camera that captured
the first of four videos released by authorities on Friday of
the traffic stop and violent confrontation that followed,
according to the officer's attorney, Lee Gerald.
    In the video, it is Hemphill who appears to fire a stun gun
at Nichols after Nichols is dragged from his car, forced to the
ground and doused with pepper spray before he breaks free and
runs away with the officers chasing him.
    TIME LAPSE?
    Police caught up to Nichols a short distance away, where
additional video clips show officers repeatedly pummeling him
with punches, kicks and baton blows before Nichols is finally
handcuffed and propped up against the side of a police vehicle.
He died three days later while hospitalized from his injuries.
    According to a fire department timeline of its response to
an incident originally dispatched as "a person pepper sprayed,"
Long and Sandridge "failed to conduct an adequate patient
assessment" when they reached Nichols at 8:41 p.m., minutes
after the beating.
        Instead, after an initial "interaction" with Nichols,
the two EMTs called for an ambulance team, who arrived on the
scene at 8:55 p.m. and "initiated patient care," the fire
department said in its statement. Nichols was transported to a
hospital a short time later.
     The "actions or inactions" of Long, Sandridge and Whitaker
"on the scene that night to not meet the expectations of the
Memphis Fire Department," Sweat said.
    In addition to the seven police officers and three fire
department personnel implicated in the Nichols encounter, two
Shelby County Sheriff's deputies have also been relieved of duty
pending an internal review, Sheriff Floyd Bonner said last
Friday, after the video was released.
    The Shelby County district attorney's investigation is
examining the roles played by all individuals involved in the
Nichols traffic stop and its immediate aftermath, including
Hemphill Memphis Fire Department personnel and "those
responsible for documenting the incident," the office said in a
statement.
    The specialized Scorpion police unit that included the five
Memphis officers charged with murder in the case was disbanded
on Saturday by the city. It was not immediately clear whether
the sixth and seventh officers under investigation belonged to
that unit.
    Davis has said investigators have not substantiate Nichols
was driving recklessly when he was pulled over, as some of the
officers involved asserted at the time.
 (Reporting by Alyssa Pointer in Memphis, Brendan O'Brien in
Chicago and Tyler Clifford and Jonathan Allen in New York;
Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Rosalba
O'Brien and Lincoln Feast.)
 ((brendan.obrien@thomsonreuters.com;))