The five officers accused of killing 29-year-old Tyre Nichols appeared in court for the first time — pleading not guilty.
Officers stopped Nichols on January 7. He died three days later in the hospital. The officers were part of a specialized street crime unit called SCORPION— formed in 2021 to fight rising crime. The unit was discontinued last month after Nichols’ death.
Nichols’ parents attended the court hearing.
"This is a glorious day. This is the beginning of the process," said Rodney Wells, Tyre Nichols' stepfather.
"I want each and every one of those police officers to be able to look me in the face. They haven't done that yet. They couldn't even do that today. They didn't even have the courage to look at me in my face after what they did to my son," said RowVaughn Wells, Tyre Nichols’ mother.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump also addressed "bogus" rumors.
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"We are aware that there were photographs that were taken and none of them were sent to all of these rumors that are out there in the social media world. The family is dealing with enough grieving the death of Tyre and their brave fight for justice then to have to deal with all these salacious rumors," Crump said.
Since the original officer’s firing, two other Memphis police officers have been relieved of duty, three Memphis Fire Department employees were also fired and most recently, two Shelby County Sheriff’s office deputies were suspended for five days without pay after they failed to keep their body cameras activated during the beating.
The Shelby County District Attorney's office has said it’s going to review all prior cases — both closed and pending — that include the officers involved in Nichols’ death.
"I have a concern as a district attorney about manpower issues because that is going to be a time consuming process. And I've got a lot of other pieces that we need, of course to prosecute, and then there is the chance that some non-trivial number of these cases will eventually be overturned," said Steve Mulroy, the Shelby County district attorney.
The next court hearing is scheduled for May 1.
