No charges for former Memphis officer Preston Hemphill in Tyre Nichols traffic stop

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – No charges will be filed against former Memphis police officer Preston Hemphill for his role in pulling Tyre Nichols over in January, Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy said Tuesday.

Hemphill, who was fired after Nichols died, was part of the group of officers involved in the initial confrontation that occurred after officers pulled Nichols over and yanked him from his car on Jan. 7. Nichols, an avid skateboarder and FedEx worker, died on Jan. 10 three days after he was beaten, and his death sparked protests in Memphis and around the country.

In footage of the arrest, Hemphill was seen firing his Taser at Nichols as he fled. Hemphill's body camera footage showed him running after Nichols for a short distance before stopping and breathing heavily.

It was after reviewing "hours and hours of body-worn camera footage," along with a number of witness interviews, that the decision was made to not pursue prosecution against Hemphill, Mulroy said.

Mulroy confirmed that Hemphill was not at the second scene where five former Memphis officers beat Nichols and said he did not believe criminal charges were appropriate for Hemphill's actions that night.

"By no means do we endorse the conduct of Officer Hemphill," Mulroy said. "Note that the Memphis Police Department did, in fact, take administrative action against Mr. Hemphill. ... But we do not believe that criminal charges are appropriate. Mr. Hemphill was not present for the initial traffic stop, nor was he present when the other officers removed Mr. Nichols forcibly from his car and put him on the ground. ... He had to make his decisions based on what he knew, or what he thought was happening, and was following the lead of other officers."

Mulroy also read a statement of support from civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who wrote on behalf of RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, Nichols' parents.

"We understand that this individual has been fully cooperating with the investigation and has promised to provide substantial cooperation going forward," the statement read. "In light of this, we are supportive of no charges for this individual. It is our deepest hope and expectation that justice will be served fully, and that all who had a role to play in this senseless tragedy will be held accountable."

Mulroy said prosecutors expect Hemphill to testify in the case and emphasized that Hemphill's cooperation was not part of a plea deal.

Five former officers − Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Emmitt Martin and Justin Smith −  were charged with murder and other crimes in Nichols' death. They appeared in court in February and pleaded not guilty.

Although the autopsy report has not been publicly released, Mulroy said prosecutors do not expect the Taser Hemphill fired to be listed as a contributing cause of Nichols' death. Mulroy said that although upon first viewing the video it appeared Hemphill fired his Taser at Nichols while he fled toward the neighborhood, Nichols may have been running toward a squad cruiser with an open door.

"After extensive viewing and reviewing of the video and understanding how Tasers work, and the amount of time it takes to charge up a Taser from the time that you start to use it, we realized that at the moment that Mr. Hemphill was trying to Taser Mr. Nichols, Mr. Nichols was not fleeing towards the neighborhood," Mulroy said. "He was, in fact, heading towards an open car door of a police cruiser and that had to bear weight on our evaluation of this decision."

Paul Hagerman, who is leading the prosecution for the case, said that did not mean that Nichols was fleeing to the car but that the officer could have perceived it that way.

"He wasn't necessarily fleeing to the open car," Hagerman said. "But, if you take the officers' perspective, if you watch the body cam very intensely, very slowly, you'll see Hemphill's perspective at the time the taser is actually deployed. We think Tyre was just trying to get away from the violence and threats you heard on the radio. But ... we have to put ourselves in a position of what Hemphill would have known, and what Hemphill saw at the time the Taser was deployed."

Dig deeper

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Follow Lucas Finton on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Tyre Nichols death: No charges for ex-Memphis officer Preston Hemphill