Emmitt Martin III was already angry on Jan. 7, 2023, his nerves simmering in his first days back on patrol in Memphis after being sidelined for months by a car accident. As a member of a street crime unit, he said, he felt the need to prove he was still a capable officer, and he had yet to make an arrest.
Then he saw a blue Nissan speed up to beat a red light.
On Tuesday, Mr. Martin told a jury that he had not only pursued that driver, Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, but that he had also punched and kicked him, and then lied about what happened. He identified the other officers there that night: all men with whom he had an unspoken understanding to never disclose the use of unwarranted force.
“I knew they weren’t going to tell on me,” Mr. Martin said. “And I wasn’t going to tell on them.”
Mr. Martin has since pleaded guilty to two charges in connection with Mr. Nichols’s beating and death three days later. On trial are three of his former Memphis police colleagues — Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith — who are accused of depriving Mr. Nichols of his civil rights and lying about what happened.
Mr. Martin’s testimony has pierced the officers’ code of silence and stripped the case to its core: whether a jury will believe that the violence and lies amounted to a federal crime.
“These are criminal defendants, they just happen to be police officers,” said Kami N. Chavis, a law professor at the College of William & Mary and director of the school’s criminal justice program.
Another officer, Desmond Mills Jr., also pleaded guilty and was expected to testify against his former colleagues.
“The fact that they are testifying against their fellow officers says nothing about the code of silence,” Ms. Chavis added. “It says the code of silence is so strong it took a criminal proceeding in order for these officers to finally tell the truth.”
All five men were members of the same team of the street crime team, known as the Scorpion unit. In the days after Mr. Nichols’s death last January, the five men, all of whom are Black, were quickly fired and later charged with state and federal charges. A state trial for all five men on second-degree murders charges is still pending.
Mr. Martin had been set to stand trial in the federal case as recently as August when he abruptly pleaded guilty, with prosecutors recommending up to 40 years in prison. (Mr. Mills had pleaded guilty months earlier, with a recommended 15-year sentence.)
When Mr. Martin first took the stand on Monday, Mr. Smith, Mr. Haley and Mr. Bean each stood to meet Mr. Martin’s eyes and let him identify them. For most of his time on the stand, however, Mr. Martin did not look at the defendants, his eyes at times darting toward the jury or down at his fidgeting hands. He answered the questions in a low baritone, often asking the prosecutor to repeat or paraphrase an inquiry.
The five men had all been connected: Mr. Martin had graduated from the police academy with Mr. Smith, and had already known Mr. Mills through a fraternity. He met Mr. Bean as a member of the team, and he and Mr. Haley, he told the jury, were known as the “Smash Brothers.”
The Scorpion unit was a “stat-driven” team, where the number of arrests and amount of contraband confiscated mattered. When Mr. Martin returned to work on Jan. 3, 2023, after months of desk duty because he was hit by a car, he was “seeing red,” he said at one point.
“I needed an arrest to show that I’m capable of doing what I’m doing,” Mr. Martin later told the jury.
Mr. Martin was driving alone when he saw Mr. Nichols speed up to beat a red light, though he acknowledged having no way of knowing how fast Mr. Nichols was driving. As he followed, he said, Mr. Nichols started changing lanes without using a turn signal, a minor traffic violation, and he pursued him.
When Mr. Martin ran Mr. Nichols’s plates, there was no record or indication of issue. Mr. Martin called over the radio to his team, he said, which led Mr. Haley to the area.
Mr. Haley and Mr. Martin boxed in Mr. Nichols’s car, and Mr. Haley yanked Mr. Nichols from his vehicle. The officers issued a barrage of expletive-laden commands for Mr. Nichols to get on the ground.
Kathryn E. Gilbert, a prosecutor, asked Mr. Martin if he ever explained to Mr. Nichols why he had been stopped. “Never got a chance to, or just didn’t?” she asked.
“Just didn’t,” Mr. Martin said.
When Mr. Haley used pepper spray, Mr. Martin said, he accidentally sprayed some of the officers present, allowing Mr. Nichols to break free.
Mr. Martin — who once earned the nickname “Full Can” after unloading an entire can of pepper spray on a man resisting arrest — grew angrier, he said. And there was an unsanctioned policy about what happened if someone ran from an officer: “You get your ass beat.”
“That was the tip of the iceberg,” he later explained. “I was already angry, on top of that I got sprayed.”
Ms. Gilbert repeatedly played clips of street camera and body camera footage that captured the moment when officers caught up to Mr. Nichols, stopping them sometimes after just a few seconds to press Mr. Martin on whom he recognized and what they were doing. She also asked whether Mr. Nichols was a threat.
“He wasn’t a threat,” Mr. Martin repeatedly said. At one point, after watching himself punch and kick Mr. Nichols, he added, “He was helpless.”
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