All 5 former law enforcement officials indicted within the lethal beating of Tyre Nichols have been members of the now-scrapped SCORPION unit, a spokesperson with the Memphis Police Division confirmed to CNN.
“The officers who’ve been terminated have been members of the SCORPION Unit,” Main Karen Rudolph mentioned in an announcement Saturday.
The previous officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr., have every been charged with second-degree homicide, aggravated assault, two prices of aggravated kidnapping, two prices of official misconduct and one cost of official oppression for his or her actions in the course of the violent arrest of Tyre Nichols.
The Memphis Police Division introduced earlier Saturday that it’ll completely deactivate the SCORPION Unit.
The Memphis mayor’s workplace declined to touch upon the transfer Saturday afternoon.
Some background: When it was launched in 2021, the SCORPION unit – Avenue Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods – was heralded as a direct response to a number of the metropolis’s worst crime, with a focus on homicides, robberies, assaults and different felonies.
The unit was utilized in focused deployments, which put officers into areas the place police have been monitoring upticks in violent crime.
It confronted elevated scrutiny after revelations that officers from the unit have been concerned in Nichols’ dying. The household’s legal professional, Antonio Romanucci, had referred to as on Memphis police to completely disband the unit instantly.
You possibly can learn extra about SCORPION right here.
