Desmond Mills Jr. watched the footage from his body camera, the Memphis courtroom silent except for the sounds of punches and Tyre Nichols’s agonized cries for his mother.
Then, Mr. Mills began to cry.
“I wish I could have stopped those punches,” Mr. Mills said through sobs during his testimony on Tuesday. “It hurt to watch. It hurt inside so much. I felt bad every time his picture is on the screen — to know I’m part of that.”
“I made his child fatherless,” he added. “I’m sorry.”
The apology from Mr. Mills, a former Memphis police officer who has pleaded guilty to federal charges, was the first explicit statement of remorse from any of the five officers charged in connection with Mr. Nichols’s beating and death in January 2023. Mr. Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, died three days after the beating, leaving behind a young son.
The dramatic admission came as prosecutors appeared to be nearing the end of their case against three of Mr. Mills’s former colleagues, who are on trial on charges of violating Mr. Nichols’s civil rights and conspiring to lie about it.
Mr. Mills had pleaded guilty to two felony charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice. Another former officer, Emmitt Martin III, also pleaded guilty weeks before the trial began.
Prosecutors recommended that Mr. Mills serve up to 15 years in prison, and Mr. Martin up to 40 years. Their testimony and Mr. Mills’s body camera footage are central to the prosecutors’ case against Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, the three former officers on trial. (All five officers also face state charges, including second-degree murder.)
Mr. Martin was among the first witnesses the prosecutors called to testify, walking the jury through the culture of the street crime unit that the officers belonged to, the pent-up anger that he felt, and the punches and blows laid on Mr. Nichols after he fled the police during a Jan. 7, 2023, traffic stop. Mr. Martin remained largely stoic during his testimony, even as he told prosecutors that Mr. Nichols did not present a threat to officers and that the amount of violent force was unnecessary.
Other witnesses, including emergency medical personnel, were visibly upset when shown either the body camera footage or a photo of a bloodied Mr. Nichols.
Mr. Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, has avoided watching the footage, repeatedly walking out of the courtroom during testimony. She looked directly at Mr. Mills during his testimony with a stony look on her face.
But Mr. Mills was easily the most emotional witness, as a Justice Department prosecutor paused clips of his body camera footage and asked him to identify the uses of force and who was responsible. In doing so, Mr. Mills also described his own brutality: how he pepper-sprayed Mr. Nichols, and then struck Mr. Nichols three times with a baton because he was angry about having sprayed himself in the process.
Asked why he told Mr. Nichols to give the police his hands, Mr. Mills replied: “To make it look better, even though it wasn’t.”
Mr. Mills also corroborated some of Mr. Martin’s testimony, about the practice of using extra force as “a punishment” for people who ran away from the police or caused them extra work. Under questioning, Mr. Mills acknowledged that he had hoped his testimony and plea agreement would lead to a lighter sentence from the judge later this year.
He also addressed Mr. Nichols’s child, telling the courtroom, “I pray this child has everything he needs growing up.”
Mr. Mills’s testimony is expected to continue on Wednesday, and defense lawyers will also have the opportunity to cross-examine him.
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