Five former Memphis police officers involved in the deadly police beating of Tyre Nichols have been indicted by a federal grand jury, according to court filings.
The five former officers – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith are facing several charges, including federal civil rights, conspiracy, and obstruction offenses resulting in Nichols’ death.
Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was violently beaten by Memphis police officers in January and he died in the hospital from his injuries.
Nichols was repeatedly punched and kicked by the five Memphis Police Department officers after the officers conducted a traffic stop and brief foot chase. He required hospitalization after the encounter and died three days later.
“Officers who violate the civil rights of those they are sworn to protect undermine public safety, which depends on the community’s trust in law enforcement,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Garland added, “The Justice Department will continue to hold accountable officers who betray their oath.”
The federal indictment says the five men “willfully deprived” Nichols of his constitutional rights “to be free from an unreasonable seizure, which includes the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer.”
The former officers “unlawfully assaulted” Nichols and “willfully failed to intervene in the unlawful assault,” which caused injuries that resulted in his death, the indictment reads.
“This is going to cause us to change gears a little bit. This adds another layer of things that we’ll have to look into and investigate,” Blake Ballin, defense attorney for Desmond Mills, told CNN, reacting to the federal indictment.
“We have been expecting this federal indictment and it does not change Mr. Mills’s position,” Ballin said in another statement to CNN. “As in the state case, Mr. Mills maintains his innocence. He will turn himself in on the federal indictment and continue to defend himself against all allegations in both the state and federal court systems.”