Tyre Nichols “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” attorneys for his family said Tuesday after an autopsy while a federal official asked Wednesday for any public expression about the case be “peaceful and non-violent.”
Nichols died earlier this month after an incident with the Memphis Police Department (MPD). Since then, city leaders have fired five MPD officers and two employees with the Memphis Fire Services Division.
Nichols’ family members viewed video of his encounter with police at Memphis City Hall Monday. Members of the family and the public have clamored to have the video released to the public. However, public officials said the video remains part of an open investigation and cannot be immediately released. Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy said the video might be released in a week or two.
An independent autopsy of Nichols’ body was performed Monday, said his family’s attorneys, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, by a “nationally renowned forensic pathologist.”
“We can state that preliminary findings indicate Tyre suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating, and that his observed injuries are consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on the video of his fatal encounter with police on January 7th, 2023,” the lawyers said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “Further details and findings from this independent report will be disclosed at another time.”
Kevin Ritz, United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee said he met with Nichols’ mother, father, grandmother, and aunt this week. They described him as “a young man who enjoyed skateboarding, Starbucks, and sunsets at Shelby Farms.”
”What I said was that the Department of Justice (DOJ) cares deeply about potential violations of constitutional rights, here in Memphis and throughout America,” Ritz said in a statement. “I said we have opened a criminal civil rights investigation. I told them this federal civil rights investigation will be thorough. It will be methodical. And it will continue until we gather all the relevant facts. As with any other federal investigation, we will go where those facts take us.”
Ritz said he told the family — and wanted the community ot hear the message as well — that “our federal investigation may take some time. These things often do. But we will be diligent, and we will make decisions based on the facts and the law.”
As for the video and its release, Ritz said: “I know there is significant public interest in the release of the video that was shown to Mr. Nichols’ family. The state and local authorities have responsibility for determining when to release video from this incident to the public. What I will say on behalf of the federal authorities is that we want people to express their right to be heard, but we want them to do so in a peaceful and non-violent way.”
