The US Department of Justice said Thursday it is investigating the patterns or practices of police in Memphis, Tennessee, nearly seven months after the violent beating of Tyre Nichols by five officers after a traffic stop. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division made the announcement in Memphis. Federal authorities will use the investigative tool to look collectively at the Memphis Police Department's use of force and stops, searches, and arrests, and whether it engages in discriminatory policing. She said that in even in the majority Black city of Memphis, the police department may be disproportionately focusing its traffic enforcement on Black drivers, the AP reports.
Clarke mentioned Nichols' death but said the investigation is not based on a single event, or a single unit with the police agency. "The Justice Department is launching this investigation to examine serious allegations that the City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conduct and discriminatory policing based on race, including a dangerously aggressive approach to traffic enforcement," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release. The city and the police department did not immediately comment. Clarke said the police chief and mayor have pledged to cooperate.
Clarke said the Department of Justice has received reports of Memphis officers escalating encounters and using excessive force, using force punitively when they perceive someone's behavior as insolent, and using force against people who are already restrained or in custody. The five officers have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges including second-degree murder in the Jan. 7 beating of Nichols after a traffic stop—and his death three days later. Caught on police video, the beating of the 29-year-old Nichols was one in a string of violent encounters between police and Black people that sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality in the US, per the AP. The five officers charged in the case are Black. So was Nichols.
(More
police brutality stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
