Federal prosecutors on Wednesday opened their case against three former Memphis police officers involved in the fatal beating last year of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, accusing them of having doled out the blows to punish him for leaving a traffic stop.
It was the “run tax,” said Elizabeth Rogers, an assistant U.S. attorney, using what she said was internal Memphis police slang for the punishment delivered to anyone who fled — extra punches or kicks that would never be reported.
The lawyers of the three former officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith — instead framed the fatal encounter as the unintended consequence of a chaotic stretch for a group of officers tasked with policing high-crime areas of the city. They said that the officers had responded in line with their training to someone who did not answer to their commands and ran away.
The former officers face charges of violating Mr. Nichols’s civil rights and conspiring to lie about what happened, and could face life in prison if convicted. Mr. Nichols, who is Black, died on Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating from the officers, all of whom are also Black.
After Mr. Nichols’s death, hours of video footage were released that showed officers kicking and punching him even as he showed little resistance, horrifying the city of Memphis and the nation. Several other officers and emergency personnel were fired, including two officers, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., who pleaded guilty to federal charges.
But the competing opening statements offered the first glimpse of how the trial could swing on vastly different interpretations of what the officers’ training and instruction required of them and what that video shows.
Federal prosecutors cast the recordings in stark terms.
“We are going to ask that you watch Tyre Nichols get beaten to death,” Ms. Rogers said. The former officers assembled that night, she added, “stood by his dying body and laughed.”
In her opening statement, Ms. Rogers said Mr. Nichols did not pose a threat that warranted the violence. She also revealed that the encounter had begun because Mr. Nichols had “sped up to beat a red light,” catching the attention of an officer.
The prosecutor said she would call Mr. Martin and Mr. Mills to testify against their former colleagues, including on the initial traffic stop and “the unspoken code” of not divulging the so-called run tax or any excessive violence.
And she said that since the officers were not forthcoming about the punches and kicks that Mr. Nichols had endured, medical staff did not have all of the information “crucial” to potentially saving Mr. Nichols’s life. An autopsy report found that he died from blunt-force injuries to his head.
The defense lawyers, however, emphasized that the former officers did call for paramedics, and that the men were following their training as part of a street crime unit.
The men “were doing the most dangerous job” in a city that has long struggled with high crime rates, said John Keith Perry, a lawyer for Mr. Bean. Michael Stengel, a lawyer for Mr. Haley, added that “their mission was different” from that of other officers.
Because the three officers arrived at the scene at different moments and each had a different interaction with Mr. Nichols, their lawyers signaled that each would bring a different defense to the charges. Only one of the three, Mr. Smith, is expected to testify, his lawyer, Martin Zummach, said.
Mr. Perry, the lawyer for Mr. Bean, suggested that Mr. Nichols had been acting suspiciously and driving erratically, and that there was additional context to be shared beyond what the prosecutors said.
And Mr. Stengel, the lawyer for Mr. Haley, noted that his client was “aggressive and profane” in pulling Mr. Nichols out of his car, but said that Mr. Haley was treating it as a “high-risk” situation and was applying his training.
A “toxic stew came together on Jan. 7, 2023,” Mr. Stengel said, additionally arguing that it would still fall short of the high bar of the burden of proof needed to convict the former officers.
Two witnesses later testified on Wednesday, including a nurse who described photos taken by investigators of Mr. Nichols in his hospital bed.
Mr. Nichols’s family was in the courtroom for the duration of the day, along with their lawyer and some supporters. Many of them wore shirts in black, gold and white, with Mr. Nichols’s name on them.
“Our hope is that they are found guilty,” RowVaughn Wells, Mr. Nichols’s mother, said during a lunch break after two pastors offered brief prayers over her family. “And to show the world that my son was a good person and he wasn’t the criminal that they’re trying to make him out to be.”
The former officers also face charges in state court, including a second-degree murder charge, and are named in a lawsuit that Ms. Wells and her husband, Rodney, brought against the city of Memphis. Those cases are on hold until the end of the federal trial, which is expected to last at least three weeks.
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