Memphis beating video puts spotlight on first police account

Get Nadine White's Race Report newsletter for a fresh perspective on the week's news Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In its first comment on the arrest the night of Jan. 7 of Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx worker, by members of the city police's so-called Scorpion unit, the department said vaguely that the officers involved had been “routinely relieved of duty” during an investigation and an outside agency had been brought in. “It's misleading,” Bell Hardaway said regarding the first police statement about the Nichols arrest. “I would say there’s a predisposition toward deniability.” He said the use of passive tense in the initial Memphis police statement — that confrontations had occurred — disguised what really happened. The reference to breathing problems was reminiscent of Floyd’s 2020 death after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the back of his neck for minutes as he lay face-down on the street and repeatedly cried out, “I can’t breathe.” Police there initially said publicly that Floyd died of a “medical incident during a police interaction.” The Minneapolis Police spokesperson who issued that statement later said that he had not visited the scene or reviewed body camera footage, and that once bystander video surfaced and outside agencies were brought in, he was unable to issue a corrected statement.