Memphis Mayor Shrugs Off DOJ Investigation Of PD, Figures Trump Will Make This All Go Away

The Memphis (TN) police department is the latest law enforcement agency to be the subject of DOJ civil rights investigation. Prompted by the brutal killing of Tyre Nichols by five “SCORPION” (Street Crimes Operations to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, and no I am not making that up) unit members in early 2023, the DOJ went to work to see if what was depicted in the footage captured by a nearby private CCTV camera was representative of the rest of the force.

This is how that went down, as captured by multiple cameras owned by the Memphis PD:

[The recording] shows an officer kicking [Tyre Nichols] three times in the face while he’s restrained on the ground. It shows officers holding him up while another strikes him in the back with a baton. It shows officers holding Nichols with his hands restrained behind them while another officer repeatedly punches him in the face.

It shows the cops dragging Nichols’ nearly lifeless body across the concrete and propping it up against the door of a cruiser. It shows them milling around, refusing to render aid. It shows so-called “first responders” arriving at the scene and refusing to respond to the clear medical emergency. It shows more than 20 minutes elapse before any aid is rendered, during which Nichols repeatedly slumps over on his side, only to be propped up again by cops attempting to make things look less medically serious than they actually are.

If you still have the stomach for more, the Memphis PD has also posted body cam recordings. But be warned, those videos have audio. Not only will you hear the clear distress in Nichol’s voice, but you’ll hear the blows being rained on him, the officers’ laughter, and their attempts to exonerate themselves by saying things to each other about guns being grabbed, etc.

Five officers were charged with murder after evidence of this assault was uncovered. None of the officers involved were convicted of murder, but three were at least convicted and sentenced for other civil rights violations. If this is the sort of thing cops feel comfortable doing in public, it stands to reason the department they work for is just as problematic.

And, indeed, it is. Like every other civil rights investigation opened by the DOJ, this one has resulted in a report [PDF] that can only be described as “scathing.”

Memphis police officers regularly violate the rights of the people they are sworn to serve. Our investigation found that officers use force to punish and retaliate against people who do not immediately do as they say. They rapidly escalate encounters, including traffic stops, and use excessive force even when people are already handcuffed or restrained. They resort to intimidation and threats. They have put themselves and others in harm’s way—officers have unlawfully fired at moving cars and accidentally pepper sprayed and fired Tasers at each other.

The lack of supervision has also contributed to officers stopping and detaining large numbers of drivers for minor infractions without legal justification. In a city of about 630,000 people, MPD officers reported making 866,164 traffic stops between January 2018 and August 2023. The number of stops may be even greater. They cited or arrested drivers in at least 296,685 cases, predominantly for minor infractions.

These practices are intrusive and routinely violate the law. Prosecutors and judges told us that officers do not understand the constitutional limits on their authority. Officers stop and detain people without adequate justification, and they conduct invasive searches of people and cars. These practices undermine public safety. They erode trust in law enforcement and result in cases getting dismissed by courts or dropped by prosecutors.

That’s the overall picture. Here’s what the DOJ has to say about the PD’s “SCORPION” unit:

The SCORPION Unit illustrates how MPD’s lack of safeguards led to unlawful conduct. MPD never adopted policies and procedures to direct the SCORPION Unit’s activities and failed to act despite alarming indications that supervision was minimal. We heard from officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, community members, and other advocates that the SCORPION Unit persistently mistreated people. Prosecutors told us that some SCORPION Unit cases involved “outrageous” inconsistencies between body-worn camera video and arrest reports, and if the cases went to trial, they “would be laughed out of court.” The unit’s misconduct led to the dismissal of dozens of criminal cases.

And here’s some granular detail of the MPD’s persistent, callous abuse of city residents’ rights.

In one incident, officers pepper sprayed, kicked, and fired a Taser at an unarmed man with mental illness because he tried to take a $2 soft drink from a gas station. Though the man abandoned the drink and left the store, an officer followed him to the edge of the parking lot, yelling at him to leave the area. As other MPD patrol cars arrived, the man put his hands in the air. Without warning, the officer grabbed his arms and shoved him against a squad car. Two more officers arrived and surrounded the man. One officer kneed him in the side four times, then pulled him to the ground and pressed his forearm into his neck. As the officer struck him, the man screamed, “No, don’t kill me!” and then tried to run away. The officer fired his Taser at him, which failed to incapacitate him. Another officer then held the man in a chokehold while the first officer pulled the Taser’s trigger to shock him again. The officer shocked the man three more times as he screamed in pain, including once after he was facedown with his hands secured behind his back. By the end of the encounter, at least nine police cars and twelve MPD officers had responded to the scene of this attempted shoplifting of a soft drink. The man was arrested and served two days in jail for theft and disorderly conduct.

Here’s more:

In 196 incidents from 2018 to 2023, officers used force against people charged for driving without a valid license.

Plus some of the ol’ “contempt of cop” retaliation that definitely isn’t localized entirely inside this one Tennessee law enforcement agency:

Officers also use force against people engaging in protected speech when they have no valid reason to stop, arrest, or detain them. After a man referred to a group of officers as “bitch-ass police,” one officer complained that he was “sick of his fucking mouth.” Shortly afterwards, the officer walked up to the man and pepper sprayed him in the face.

In a different encounter, a man shouted, “Solve a crime!” at two officers standing outside a gas station. One officer cut short his phone call, telling the person he was talking to, “I’m about to take someone into custody right now.” The officers grabbed the man from behind, lifted him up, and slammed him on the hood of their squad car. One officer told the man, “If you want to come up here and talk some bullshit . . . that’s on you.”

So, it’s pretty much open-and-shut. The next step would be the DOJ taking this to a federal court and presenting a consent decree that would give the DOJ temporary oversight of the Memphis PD to ensure its officers start being less violent and more respectful of people’s rights.

That’s what would normally be the next step. But, as has been made apparent by the immediate rejection of this report by Memphis political leaders, the city seems to feel it has nothing to fear from this report, much less any compelling reason to change the way it handles day-to-day police business.

Officials in Memphis said that the city would not immediately agree to negotiate an overhaul of the Memphis Police Department with the federal government. Mayor Paul Young warned that doing so could be “bureaucratic and costly.”

While there is almost always immediate opposition to reports that honestly portray the reality of US law enforcement, this resistance appears to be a bit different. The city of Memphis likely believes this is just a waiting game — a game it’s sure to win. It’s far more likely the US government (along with the head DOJ officials) will see significant turnover prior to any enforcement action by the DOJ. Once Trump takes office and gets his people into the DOJ, it’s safe to assume any proposed enforcement will be discarded as the incoming president places civil rights on the back burner for the next four years.

History tends to repeat itself, especially when it’s being written by a guy who can barely handle a Sharpie:

Over Trump’s four years in office, the DOJ opened just one new investigation into potential departmental civil rights violations, far less than the 25 it opened during former President Barack Obama’s tenure and the 12 it has opened under Biden. Additionally, it was much more reluctant to enter into legal agreements with cities about required police reforms — one of the department’s best tools for enforcing changes to policing.

In 2017, Trump’s DOJ abandoned enforcement efforts targeting the Chicago PD, despite Obama’s DOJ finding a pattern and practice of civil rights abuses. (Remember Honan Square, anyone?) Trump’s next two AG appointees (Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr) were similarly uninterested in opening investigations, much less enforcing agreements already in progress when they took office. Given that history, it’s unsurprising the mayor of Memphis has basically stated he’s not going to engage in any consent decree discussions. Normally, city leaders say as little as possible until the negotiations start in court. Mayor Paul Young is basically daring the DOJ to act before the Trump Administration says incoherent things about “rule of law” and (maybe) “federalism” before completely negating the efforts of dozens of DOJ investigators.

And that means policing in Memphis won’t need to change. It can continue to be as demonstrably awful as it is for the foreseeable future, free from the existential threat of, I don’t know… having to act like public servants who comprehend their immense power is supposed to be tempered by an equal amount of responsibility.