![]() The vast majority of people arrested in Memphis - 86% - were Black, a large overrepresentation, even in a city where 65% of residents are Black. ![]() That was almost twice as many people as police arrested that year in Nashville, which has 50,000 more residents and is the biggest city in Tennessee. In 2021, Memphis police arrested nearly 15,000 people for violent and property crimes closely tracked by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The department’s own data indicates broad use of aggressive tactics. Among them: stopping a vehicle because part of its temporary tag was “flapping in the wind,” chasing a man for “appearing to back away” as they approached, and detaining someone after he warned people in his neighborhood that plainclothes police were conducting an investigation. ![]() They were regular patrol officers.Īn investigation by The Marshall Project and The Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis found incidents of aggressive policing throughout the 1,900-member force.Ī review of more than 200 arrest reports from spring of last year shows that rank-and-file officers, as well as Scorpion members, used overzealous methods in their encounters. They weren’t even from the organized crime unit Scorpion was part of. Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis disbanded the squad after critics said it frequently used heavy-handed and even unconstitutional tactics.īut the officers who beat Dean weren’t from Scorpion. The incident brought widespread scrutiny of the Memphis Police Department’s Scorpion unit, which was supposed to target violent crime. And they’re out here doing this to people every day.”ĭean’s violent encounter with police happened months before Tyre Nichols died after police beat him during a traffic stop in January this year. “I’ve been on this earth 31 years and never been arrested,” said Dean, a former Navy mechanic. One of them doused him with pepper spray, a police report said. Within minutes, three officers began beating and kicking Dean, leaving blood on the concrete, according to store surveillance video his family obtained. Two Memphis police squad cars pulled into the parking lot. This article was published in partnership with the Institute for Public Service Reporting, The Commercial Appeal and MLK50.
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