What To Know About The Now-Disbanded ‘SCORPION’ Police Unit That Pulled Him Over

Topline

The Memphis Police Department disbanded its specialized SCORPION unit on Saturday, after five officers from the group were charged with murder for beating Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop—eliminating a unit that was started in an effort to curb violent crime but has faced criticism from Memphis residents and advocates for using heavy-handed tactics.

Demonstrators gather and march through downtown protesting the death of Tyre Nichols on January 28, … [+] 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Key Facts

The SCORPION Unit—which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods—launched in late 2021 as a 50-person seven-day-a-week team dedicated to fighting violent crime, with officers focusing on weapons, auto thefts and gangs, as well as “crime suppression officers” in “hot spot areas.”

SCORPION officers did not have to respond to dispatcher calls, and instead were tasked with identifying, “a target area, flood[ing] that area with officers and suppress[ing] crime in that area. Mostly just by visibility,” said Assistant Chief of Police Services Don Crowe in 2022, according to local TV station WREG.

In its first three weeks, the unit made 338 arrests, local media reported in December 2021; violent crime—a compilation of homicides, forcible rape, robbery of businesses, robbery to individuals and aggravated assaults—was down roughly 5% in Memphis in January 2022 compared to that same month a year prior, Crowe previously said, though it’s unclear whether that trend was tied to SCORPION.

Why members of the SCORPION unit were involved in stopping Nichols remains a crucial unanswered question—his family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, said Nichols shouldn’t have been pulled over by the unit for a traffic stop, something “far outside the unit’s stated purpose of stemming violent crime.”

Other Memphis residents have reported run-ins with the unit: Crump said “another Black male” was the subject of “excessive force by a group of SCORPION officers” just days before Nichols was arrested, and Memphis resident Cornell Walker told the Los Angeles Times he was accosted at gunpoint by SCORPION officers, including one who was involved in Nichols’ arrest, during this time (It’s not clear if Crump was speaking about Walker’s claims, or a separate incident).

In a statement, Crump criticized the SCORPION unit and others like it in police departments around the country, saying without tight supervision, “the behavior of these units can morph into ‘wolf pack’ misconduct that takes away a person’s liberty or freedom to move,” comparing it to kidnapping, and that Black and Brown people are often targeted by these units, particularly through traffic stops without probable cause.

Keedran Franklin, a community organizer in Memphis, told NBC News these officers stoke fear because of “the way they move in unmarked cars, looking like regular guys, bumping to rap music, they got on hoodies, they’re really looking the part, like they’re a part of the community, but they’re police.”

News Peg

The SCORPION unit, which was composed of roughly 30 officers at the time of Nichols’ January 7 arrest, had been inactive since that incident. It has since been “permanently deactivate[d],” Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said on Saturday—just one day after body camera footage of Nichols’ arrest and officers’ violent confrontation with him was released. In a statement announcing the group had been disbanded, the Memphis Police Department said, “while the heinous actions of a few casts a cloud of dishonor on the title SCORPION, it is imperative that we… take proactive steps in the healing process for all impacted.”

Surprising Fact

On Friday, Davis said she planned to keep the SCORPION unit intact. “The whole idea that the SCORPION unit is a bad unit, I just have a problem with that,” she told the Associated Press. Davis said she needed the unit to continue to work and it wouldn’t be shut down because a few officers committed “some egregious act.” That same day she told NBC the SCORPION unit was “able to last year actually help us reduce our crime. Unfortunately, this incident clouds all of what has happened and some of the good work that other officers have done.”

Key Background

Nichols, 29, was pulled over for alleged reckless driving on January 7, and a group of officers from the SCORPION UNIT attacked and beat him. During the incident, the officers confronted Nichols at two separate locations and kicked, beat and punched Nichols, who screamed that he “didn’t do anything,” according to body cam footage. Nicholas died on January 10 from excessive blood loss. Both Nicholas and the officers who arrested him are Black. The five officers involved in his arrest—Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith—were fired last week for violating department policies, including excessive use of force. On Thursday, they were charged with second-degree murder, official oppression, aggravated assault and official misconduct, after investigations by the FBI, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office and other agencies determined they were “directly responsible” for causing the injuries which resulted in Nichols’ death. The former officers have not entered pleas yet, but attorneys for Mills and Martin said their clients plan to plead not guilty.

Crucial Quote

Crump on Sunday urged Democrats to get the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act—which would outlaw certain controversial police tactics, make it easier to file civil suits against officers and create a misconduct registry—“back on the table.” “Without federal police reform, we’re going to see these hashtags proliferate so much that we can’t keep up with them,” said Crump, who has also represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Stephon Clark.