I heard this morning that the dead young mans parents will be at the SOTU. I'm sure Joe will make very unifying and uplifting statements

He may forget they are even there.

The comment by Nichols' mother that she hates that her son was murdered by black men- what a bizarre statement. It would have been better if he had been murdered by white men? Just bizarre.

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:

How much of this is not just on the idiots who beat this man to death, but on the stupid admins who hired people like this? How much is on the "activists" who "defunded" or their real goal "demoralized" the police? They pushed SO hard to check boxes instead of letting departments hire people deemed good by police, but instead deemed "good hires" by civilian boards, or activists, or idiot alderman (or alderwomyn) to check boxes. And maybe those people have no business being officers?

This is happening in every major industry and in every major field. In the engineering field (my area), most of your major companies are quite open about their diversity programs, hiring, and promotion policies. Political check-boxes trump aptitude and temperament in many cases. Incompetent people get hired and promoted, often on accelerated schedules, and then the remaining competent people become demoralized, often leaving for smaller companies or forming isolated pockets of competence within larger companies. The net effect is incompetence becoming more prevalent. With these cops, incompetence results in very public, very deadly incidents like the one we are discussing here.

Excellent write up, by the way.

If those guys were white...??!!! Can't imagine.

Not watching the vid, heard the descriptions.

FoxNews reported that Nichols liked watching sunsets.

I hope they don't turn this guy's life into a Summer's Eve commercial.

My first impression of the beating- it was strictly personal, not business. Pre-meditation. IMO, the Rodney King beating was business, not personal.


Here is an interesting video of the dead man, a guy who had a job as a Fed X driver, skateboarding, and not bad at all. Doesn't strike me as a gangbanger or violent thug type.

The hiring issues predate the current Chief. Memphis is nearly 800 below complement and the hiring standards are not what they once were or should be. Hiring for Police is difficult the last several years and MPD had a mass exodus about 2015 when there were some changes to the retirement benefits. Almost everybody who could leave for somewhere else without starting over from scratch did. It left a huge hole in regard to senior seasoned patrol officers.

I have to be very careful what I say about this situation and be very clear that anything I say is purely personal opinion. Everything that follows is based on publicly available information.

Scorpion was a saturation unit. It wasn't like LAPD SIS where they had targets under surveillance. You had 30 car breakins in your ward last night? Scorpion might show up with 10 cars and stop everything that moved with a broken taillight or obscured drive out tag. They used those stops to check for stolen vehicles and warrants. They got a ton of felony arrests and recovered an enormous number of stolen or otherwise illegal weapons that way. Most of the folks in the unit are good people and effective cops. Memphis has other units that do the SIS type work (for now at least) but that wasn't Scorpion's job.

The systemic problem, as I see it, is when you take young inexperienced officers in any department, put them in a high speed unit tasked with aggressive policing without very close supervision, and then pump them up with "you're elite and special" egos get involved. Add in a few very, VERY bad people with strong personalities, and the culture of that unit can go very bad, very quickly. That's not specifically a Memphis issue, we've seen it all over.

I'm a big fan of task forces. I've worked on them and run one. They are incredibly effective. You just have to be careful they don't spiral out of control. This one got out of control in the worst possible way imaginable.

Nothing in that video was representative of the training or tactics of MPD. From the initial stop to the tragic end no one made the slightest effort to deescalate the situation. No one acted like a professional. No one sounded like a professional. They acted like common street criminals, which is exactly what it turns out they were. They are responsible for their own actions. The Department should have caught it before they got to that point though. There are safeguards in place that clearly didn't work.

I fully expect that in the next few days more people will be charged administratively, including some ranking officers. I expect we may even see more criminal charges. None of the investigations either internally or externally are completed yet.

It's the most horrific thing I've ever seen in 25 years on the job. For the first time in my entire career I'm uncomfortable to be in my uniform in public.

I will say this though. I'm extremely proud of the way Chief Davis has been handling this. She's been open, honest, and has moved with unprecedented speed. So has TBI and the DA.
That poor family has displayed more grace than I can even begin to fathom. They've been a voice of reason and calm that did much to keep the city from coming apart over the weekend.

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:

This SHOULD NOT have happened. But I think the reason it happened is not on police as a whole, but on the extreme pressure society places on police.

The wrong people were place on the dept, for the wrong reasons, to check the wrong boxes, and the unit was directed to do the wrong thing and the wrong person died.

Sadly, while the officers involved here need to be held accountable, absolutely no one is going to hold the OTHERS accountable. Mainly the chief, the mayor, the City Council, and really..... Society.

Society ALSO needs to be accountable. This is what happens when "thug culture" becomes mainstream. This is what happens when you "pass the buck."

This SHOULDN'T happen.

Good summary, Kevin.

He's a pretty decent skater.

What an absolute sad state of affairs all around. A truly tragic and heartbreaking death.

Sixth police officer suspended following fatal beating of Tyre Nichols

https://nypost.com/2023/01/30/...ing-of-tyre-nichols/

A sixth Memphis police officer has been suspended as the fallout from the release of graphic body camera footage showing the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols earlier this month grows.

Preston Hemphill has been placed on administrative leave, the department said Monday.

Hemphill may be the white officer who was wearing one of the body cameras which was released by Memphis PD on Friday. In that footage the unidentified officer was seen attempting to arrest FedEx driver Nichols, 29, after he was initially pulled over, then firing his Taser at him as he ran from police. He later says “I hope they stomp his ass,” but the officer is not part of the group who then chase Nichols down.

“Officer Hemphill is relieved of duty. This is an ongoing investigation. Once additional information is available, we will update our social media platforms. Hemphill was hired in 2018,” a department spokesperson said.

It took them a few days, but they finally managed to work whitey into it.

Can't you hear them now? "I KNEW IT!! I KNEW IT!! WHITE SUPREMACISTS KILLED TYRE!!!"

And that exact statement has already been made all over the place. Fun times.

He's been relieved and under investigation since the incident but never made the second scene where the beating occurred which is why his part of the investigation wasn't expedited and is still ongoing.

I'd not want to be him.

Bagged a cracker. Ever thang's goan be aight now...

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
It is clear that the mass media is doing everything they can to keep rubbing this in our faces in the hopes a riot will break out somewhere.

Oops... spoke too soon, Philly just went riot.

Could it be because the Eagles just won a trip to the Super Bowl?

Kansas City won last night too, but I was not aware of any rioting. Celebrations? Absolutely. We spent the weekend in the KC suburbs, Overland Park.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
The comment by Nichols' mother that she hates that her son was murdered by black men- what a bizarre statement. It would have been better if he had been murdered by white men? Just bizarre.

Yeah, considering according to FBI's crime statistics, black men are overwhelmingly, far and away, murder victims of other black men.

I got the feeling, watching and listening to that video, that it wasn't their first time beating someone like that. You guys hear the one guy repeatedly telling the other guy "Do yo thang"? Other than encouragement, they didn't have to tell anyone what to do, it was like a well-coordinated routine. The two guys lifting him up by the arms so the others could wail on him: surely that doesn't just occur as a random thought in two minds, right? I've never been part of such a thing in either role, but it didn't look like it just "happened" to me.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Bagged a cracker. Ever thang's goan be aight now...

A woman I once arrested called me a cracker….


https://tenor.com/view/spiderm...hing-lol-gif-4596905

Made my whole night

/drift

The prosecution is going to try and loop him into the murder charge, use a RICO type situation where he orchestrated the events that led to the murder and is ultimately as guilty as those who did the killing. Like the mob boss who orders a killing and his soldiers carry it out. The audio comment will infer an intent or consciousness of guilt in the prosecution theory. It's a common tactic by prosecutors even before Rodney King. The problem for his defense this guy will be the focus of the Pravda.

I would have most likely also hollered, “beat his ass!”

I’ve got big time respect for lawmen. I know right off I could never do your job. Just occurred to me no one I know talks bad about the law, we all know we need that calling in life.

Thanks fellas, stay safe!

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
A woman I once arrested called me a cracker….

Made my whole night

Isn't it funny how sometimes it's the insults that lead to the biggest smiles?

I recently had someone angrily holler at me after being cuffed: "Your head looks like a thumb!" They had already run through the rest of their insult repertoire, and I guess that was all they could think of next.

It didn't have the intended effect. Instead, both myself and the guy backing me up were cracking up big time and agreeing with them. I've been called everything in the book over the past nearly 2 decades, but that was new to me.

(For context: I shave my head. So yes, now that you mention it, my head does look like a thumb!)

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

Kansas City won last night too, but I was not aware of any rioting.

That’s because the Chiefs’ fans are still sitting in gape mouthed amazement before their TV screens.



JK. They played a heck of a game.