#scorpionunit — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #scorpionunit, aggregated by home.social.
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3 Former Officers Found Guilty of Cover-Up in Tyre Nichols’s Death
The former officers were acquitted of the most serious charge in the case — violating Mr. Nichols’s #CivilRights by causing his death.
By Emily Cochrane and Ben Stanley
Reporting from Memphis.
Oct. 3, 2024"Three former Memphis police officers were found guilty on Thursday of federal witness tampering charges in the violent beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died three days after his encounter with the police.
But all of the officers were acquitted of the most serious charge in the case — violating Mr. Nichols’s civil rights by causing his death. One officer, Demetrius Haley, was convicted on a lesser charge of violating Mr. Nichols’s civil rights by causing bodily injury.
"The mixed verdict in the federal trial in Memphis comes nearly two years after Mr. Nichols’s death, which sickened many across the nation, who viewed it as the latest example of a young Black man being subjected to #ExcessiveForce at the hands of the #police."Video of the January 2023 encounter showed that after Mr. Nichols fled a #TrafficStop, officers viciously punched and kicked him, ignoring his cries for his mother and his attempts to comply with a barrage of conflicting commands. None of the officers reported the extent of the beating.
"The three defendants, along with two other former officers who pleaded guilty to their role in the violence, still face additional state charges, including second-degree murder.
"Sentencing on the federal convictions is expected to occur in January.
"'You know what these officers did and know it because you saw it over and over again,' said Kathryn Gilbert, a Justice Department lawyer, in closing statements. 'You can use your eyes. You can use your ears. You can use your common sense. You know what these officers did.'
"The trial, which lasted about 17 days, exposed a culture of #secrecy and #violence within the #MemphisPolice Department, where officers held to an unspoken agreement that they could punish anyone who fled from them and downplay the violence. The five officers — all of whom are Black — were part of a team within the specialized Scorpion street crime unit, where arrest statistics and confiscations were a priority."
Original article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/us/tyre-nichols-verdict.htmlArchived version:
https://archive.ph/IDgFH#selection-823.0-859.413#ACAB #BlackLivesMatter #TyreNichols #JusticeForTyre #ScorpionUnit #MemphisTennessee #Tennessee #DrivingWhileBlack
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Video footage depicting #TyreNichols’s beating by members of the department’s #ScorpionUnit — a group of 40 officers tasked w/ patrolling violent-crime *hot spots* throughout the city — sparked protests & outrage in #Memphis, & spurred change.
The special unit was disbanded, & the #DOJ has launched a civil pattern or practice investigation into the city & the department.#SocialJustice #law #BLM #BlackLivesMatter #PoliceViolence #AbuseOfPower #SystemicRacism
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#Black #Army #Vet Says Same #Memphis #Cops #Beat Him Days Before #Killing #TyreNichols
#MonterriousHarris alleges he was pulled from his car and beaten by the same “#ScorpionUnit” officers charged in the murder of Tyre Nichols.
TO
By Tess Owen
February
On the evening of Jan 4, a Black army veteran named Monterrious Harris says he was in his car outside an apartment complex in Memphis, Tennessee waiting for his cousin, when a group of armed men in ski masks and black clothes “suddenly swarmed his vehicle” and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t exit the car.These men were not carjackers, as Harris initially believed, but officers from Memphis’ police department—allegedly the very same officers who, only days later, would be seen on body camera brutally beating Tyre Nichols, leading to his death.
Vice.com -
Muscle Cars, Balaclavas and Fists: How the Scorpions Rolled Through Memphis https://news.yahoo.com/muscle-cars-balaclavas-fists-scorpions-175810374.html
For 14 months, officers from the high-profile #ScorpionUnit of the #MemphisPolice Department in Tennessee patrolled city streets with an air of menace, zooming up on targets, jumping out of their Dodge Chargers at a dead run, shouting at people to get out of their vehicles, lie down on the ground #PoliceViolence #PoliceBrutality #PoliceShootings #GeorgeFloydPolicingAct #PoliceReform -
#WashingtonDC #PoliceBrutality
. @DCPoliceDept has a Crime Suppression Unit, similar to Memphis #ScorpionUnit. Terrence Sutton worked for that unit the night Karon Hylton was killed. He was found Guilty on all charges for Karon’s death. Sutton and Zabavsky are in the comfort of their homes, FREE not in a cage.
https://twitter.com/HarrietsDreams/status/1619783064087064576
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. @DCPoliceDept has a Crime Suppression Unit, similar to Memphis #ScorpionUnit. Terrence Sutton worked for that unit the night Karon Hylton was killed. He was found Guilty on all charges for Karon’s death. Sutton and Zabavsky are in the comfort of their homes, FREE not in a cage.
https://twitter.com/HarrietsDreams/status/1619783064087064576
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CW: TW references to police violence. 'Scorpion' police unit deactivated.
Tyre Nichols: Memphis police shut down ‘Scorpion’ unit day after fatal beating video released to public | The Independent
#MemphisScorpionUnit
#ScorpionUnit
#MemphisPolice
#TyreNichols
#MPDMPD announced specialist team involved in arrest would be ‘permanently deactivated’
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#MemphisPD said Saturday that it would shut down the the so-called #ScorpionUnit that had employed the five officers charged in the death of #TyreNichols as fallout from the brutal beating continues. A day after video footage of Nichols being beaten was released, a broadening web of investigations had expanded to scrutinize additional local authorities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/28/tyre-nichols-memphis-video/
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It appears that these police who killed #TyreNicols may have been put into an aggressive police unit when they were too new to policing and not sufficiently trained.
Another question, and there are many, why did no one see this coming? What type of supervision oversaw their behaviors? Were there no psychological reviews involved?
Most importantly, what is going on with other such police units?
This is heartbreaking for many reasons.
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It appears that these police who killed #TyreNicols may have been put into an aggressive police unit when they were too new to policing and not sufficiently trained.
Another question, and there are many, why did no one see this coming? What type of supervision oversaw their behaviors? Were there no psychological reviews involved?
Most importantly, what is going on with other such police units?
This is heartbreaking for many reasons.
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It appears that these police who killed #TyreNicols may have been put into an aggressive police unit when they were too new to policing and not sufficiently trained.
Another question, and there are many, why did no one see this coming? What type of supervision oversaw their behaviors? Were there no psychological reviews involved?
Most importantly, what is going on with other such police units?
This is heartbreaking for many reasons.
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It appears that these police who killed #TyreNicols may have been put into an aggressive police unit when they were too new to policing and not sufficiently trained.
Another question, and there are many, why did no one see this coming? What type of supervision oversaw their behaviors? Were there no psychological reviews involved?
Most importantly, what is going on with other such police units?
This is heartbreaking for many reasons.
-
It appears that these police who killed #TyreNicols may have been put into an aggressive police unit when they were too new to policing and not sufficiently trained.
Another question, and there are many, why did no one see this coming? What type of supervision oversaw their behaviors? Were there no psychological reviews involved?
Most importantly, what is going on with other such police units?
This is heartbreaking for many reasons.
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"There are more than two dozen officers assigned to SCORPION teams. They wear black hoodies and tactical black vests with "POLICE" emblazoned across the front and back, and drive dark colored Dodge Chargers marked with a SCORPION seal.
The crime-suppression teams patrol in groups and at times use justified low-level traffic stops as a way to find violent criminals, drugs or weapons."
From CBSnews
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyre-nichols-former-memphis-police-officer-scorpion-unit/ -
"There are more than two dozen officers assigned to SCORPION teams. They wear black hoodies and tactical black vests with "POLICE" emblazoned across the front and back, and drive dark colored Dodge Chargers marked with a SCORPION seal.
The crime-suppression teams patrol in groups and at times use justified low-level traffic stops as a way to find violent criminals, drugs or weapons."
From CBSnews
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"There are more than two dozen officers assigned to SCORPION teams. They wear black hoodies and tactical black vests with "POLICE" emblazoned across the front and back, and drive dark colored Dodge Chargers marked with a SCORPION seal.
The crime-suppression teams patrol in groups and at times use justified low-level traffic stops as a way to find violent criminals, drugs or weapons."
From CBSnews
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"There are more than two dozen officers assigned to SCORPION teams. They wear black hoodies and tactical black vests with "POLICE" emblazoned across the front and back, and drive dark colored Dodge Chargers marked with a SCORPION seal.
The crime-suppression teams patrol in groups and at times use justified low-level traffic stops as a way to find violent criminals, drugs or weapons."
From CBSnews
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyre-nichols-former-memphis-police-officer-scorpion-unit/ -
"The SCORPION unit, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, was announced in October 2021 and launched a month later. It encompasses 40 officers split into four teams who patrol "high crime hotspots" throughout the city, the police department announced in November 2021."
From ABCnews https://abcnews.go.com/US/scorpion-unit-memphis-police-task-force-center-tyre/story?id=96720313
