No Criminal Charges for Former Officer Who Fired Taser at Tyre Nichols

Why It Matters: Mr. Hemphill is cooperating with prosecutors.

Mr. Mulroy stated he anticipated that Mr. Hemphill would testify in court docket as prosecutors pursue prices towards the opposite officers.

Mr. Hemphill has repeatedly met with investigators in latest weeks, Mr. Mulroy stated, because the Memphis Police Department took steps to have the state bar him and the opposite officers concerned within the encounter with Mr. Nichols from ever once more working for a Tennessee police company.

According to inside affairs paperwork filed because the state requested to disbar Mr. Hemphill, he helped pull Mr. Nichols from his automotive after the site visitors cease and deployed his Taser for 3 seconds when Mr. Nichols fled after being pepper sprayed by one other officer. “The subject was not armed, and did not impose an immediate threat to you or others,” the paperwork acknowledged.

At the news convention, Mr. Mulroy learn an announcement on behalf of Mr. Nichols’s household, supplied by their lawyer, Ben Crump, which cited Mr. Hemphill’s cooperation as a cause they supported the choice.

Lee Gerald, a lawyer for Mr. Hemphill, stated, “We are obviously pleased with the turn of events that the case has taken.” He added that Mr. Hemphill “continues to honor his oath as a police officer to enforce the law, and that would include fully cooperating in all aspects of a criminal prosecution.”

What’s Next: Cases towards the 5 charged officers will transfer ahead.

The fallout from the violent beating of Mr. Nichols has drawn scrutiny to the Memphis Police Department’s historical past of extreme brutality and led to a sequence of administrative punishments, together with a number of suspensions and the firing of two E.M.T.s and a lieutenant with the Memphis Fire Department.

A proper post-mortem can be launched quickly, Mr. Mulroy stated, and is predicted to “confirm that Mr. Nichols died as a result of the injuries sustained in the beating.”

The household of Mr. Nichols has additionally filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit towards the Police Department and the City of Memphis over the dying of their son. The felony circumstances towards the 5 officers charged in Mr. Nichols’s dying — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — are additionally set to maneuver ahead within the coming weeks.

Jessica Jaglois contributed reporting from Memphis.