The autopsy of Tyre Nichols, the man who died after he was brutally assaulted by Memphis police officers, reveals he died of blunt force trauma, his family’s lawyers said.
Nichols, 29, died on Jan. 10, three days after he was pulled over for alleged reckless driving and was repeatedly punched and kicked in the face and hit with pepper spray and a stun gun.
His manner of death was ruled a homicide, attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci said in a statement Wednesday evening.
The Nichols family was briefed on the autopsy results by Steve Mulroy, the district attorney in Shelby County, Tennessee, earlier on Wednesday, the attorneys said.
“The legal team representing the family of Tyre Nichols acknowledges the release of the medical examiner’s report, the contents of which are highly consistent with our own reporting back in January of this year,” the attorneys said. “We know now what we knew then.”
“The official autopsy report further propels our commitment to seeking justice for this senseless tragedy,” the statement concluded.
In January, preliminary findings from an autopsy by a forensic pathologist hired by the Nichols’ family found that he “suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” the family attorneys said at the time.
The pathologist found that Nichols’ injuries were “consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on the video of his fatal encounter with police,” the attorneys said.
In the Jan. 7 incident, Memphis police officials said that Nichols was involved in a traffic stop in which he was injured. He fled and police chased and assaulted him.
The city’s top police official, Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, described the officers’ conduct as “heinous, reckless and inhumane.”
Seven Memphis police officers were fired in the wake of Nichols’ death, which sparked national uproar and harshened the spotlight on police brutality.
Five officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were charged with second-degree murder, among other counts, in his death. They pleaded not guilty in February.
On Tuesday, the district attorney’s office said no charges will be brought against former Memphis police officer Preston Hemphill. He was relieved of duty following the traffic stop.
Mulroy said that Hemphill was at the traffic stop but not at the second scene where Nichols was seen on video being punched and struck with a baton.
Ravaughn Wells, Nichols’ mother, said her son was simply trying to get home when police stopped him.
“He was two minutes from the house when they stopped him,” she said at a news conference in January. “He was less than 80 yards away when they murdered him. Yes, I said murder … because when I walked into that hospital room, my son was already dead.”
