Justice Department says Memphis police used systemic excessive force

The Justice Department on Wednesday said a 17-month civil rights investigation found that the Memphis Police Department engages in the systemic use of excessive force and discriminates against Black people and disabled people.

In a scathing 73-page report, federal authorities said they had identified a pattern of unlawful conduct, including serious problems in the way officers handle traffic stops and deal with children, as well as deficiencies in training, policies and accountability of officers accused of misconduct.

The report comes nearly two years after Memphis police officers on a specialized street-crime unit brutally beat Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, after a traffic stop. Nichols died from his injuries three days later. Justice officials said they will discuss the findings at a news conference in Memphis on Thursday.

“The people of Memphis deserve a police department and city that protects their civil and constitutional rights, garners trust and keeps them safe,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a statement.

Though senior Justice officials had traveled to Memphis this week to discuss the public rollout of the report, the timing of its release Wednesday evening was not expected by Memphis city leaders.

Hours earlier, Memphis City Attorney Tannera George Gibson had emailed a letter to Clarke and other senior Justice officials rebuffing the federal government’s attempts to place the city’s police department on federal supervision based on the results of investigation, calling the process a “rush to judgment.”

In the letter, Gibson said local leaders would reject a preliminary agreement on a legally binding consent decree resulting from the investigation. She said the city has already implemented changes to the police department and has not had enough time to review and potentially dispute the federal investigation’s findings, which had not been released to the public.

Gibson said similar investigations into departments in other cities - including Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix - have lasted between two and three years, making the process in Memphis appear rushed by comparison. In addition, assistance measures other than federal oversight that costs taxpayers a lot of money can result in faster and more efficient reforms, she said.

Memphis will not “agree to work toward or enter into a consent decree that will likely be in place for years to come,” Gibson wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.

“From what we understand, consent decrees remain in place for an average of more than ten years, with absolutely no controls to ensure timely completion or consideration for the financial impact to the affected community,” Gibson wrote. “Such a proposal is not the right solution for Memphis.”

A consent decree would require the police to pursue broad changes to use-of-force policies, training and disciplinary measures under the supervision of a federal monitor. The federal oversight usually lasts around 10 years and costs local jurisdictions millions of dollars annually.

Memphis’s opposition to a negotiated consent decree comes at a crucial moment for the Biden administration, which is pushing to lock in sweeping police reform plans in several cities before President-elect Donald Trump takes office Jan. 20.

In his campaign, Trump promised to reverse the Biden administration’s intervention into local law enforcement agencies and support more aggressive policing tactics, including the use of stop-and-frisk to detain people and dispatching the National Guard to subdue unrest.

Consent decrees, which require approval from a federal judge, could make it more difficult for the incoming Trump administration to reverse course. But the Justice Department has not locked in such an agreement in any of the dozen jurisdictions that have been subject to civil “pattern or practice” investigations under Attorney General Merrick Garland.

City officials in Minneapolis and Louisville, where federal authorities released reports of systemic misconduct in 2023, said they are engaged in active consent decree negotiations with the Justice Department. In Phoenix, where authorities released a report this year, some city officials have publicly opposed a consent agreement and talks have slowed.

Federal authorities have completed investigations in to police departments in two other jurisdictions - Lexington, Mississippi, and Trenton, New Jersey. Probes remain ongoing in six others - Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; Worcester, Massachusetts; and the state of Louisiana; the sheriff’s office in Rankin County, Mississippi; and the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Unit.

The Justice Department launched its investigation in Memphis in July 2023, seven months after the police beating of motorist Nichols sparked national outrage. Nichols was beaten by several Black Memphis officers on Jan. 7, 2023, and died three days later of his injuries in an incident caught on police surveillance and body-camera footage that was released to the public.

The federal investigation was not limited to Nichols’s death but sought to examine whether the Memphis police force inappropriately targeted Black residents on traffic stops and discriminated more broadly against Black people.

Federal officials traveled to Memphis this week in preparation of finalizing the misconduct report and releasing it to the public, according to people familiar with the process. Typically, the Justice Department has sought to strike an agreement-in-principle on a consent decree with local officials ahead of the public announcement.

“After evaluating the effects of these consent decrees in other cities, we believe there are better ways to reimagine policing that do not slow the process or cost the taxpayers millions of dollars,” Gibson wrote in her letter to the Justice Department. She cited the department’s past use of technical assistance letters, which offer jurisdictions federal guidance and support but do not require judges or monitors to sign off on compliance.

Some former Justice officials have said technical assistance letters are less effective in compelling local police to make reforms. The Justice Department could file a lawsuit aimed at forcing Memphis to accept a consent order, but such a legal process would drag on for months, providing the Trump administration the opportunity to drop legal support for such a plan.

In Trump’s first term, his administration ended the Obama administration’s push for a consent agreement with the Chicago police department, after a year-long investigation found systemic police misconduct in that city.

The Chicago police instead entered into a consent order with the state of Illinois in 2019 that remains in place and has resulted in compliance with just 9% of the agreement, according to news reports. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson last month reversed his proposal to cut funding for the state consent decree to help close a city budget gap.

The outcomes of consent decrees have produced mixed results in lowering excessive force violations; across the nation, the number of fatal shootings by police has risen in recent years, according to a Washington Post database that tracks such incidents.

But federal officials and civil rights advocates say consent decrees are a crucial component to bring more durable changes to abusive police departments. Although the Justice Department has investigated a tiny fraction of the nation’s 18,000 federal, state, local and tribal police agencies, authorities have said the resulting agreements provide detailed plans that could assist other departments seeking to bolster accountability and improve community trust.

Amber Sherman, a community activist in Memphis, said she is open to supporting a federal consent decree, but that city leaders were justified in wanting more time to read the Justice Department’s report.

“We are really concerned about the price a consent decree would have,” Sherman said. “I think we definitely need one, but I do not want to get one and have it bankrupt the city and hurt the many poor people who live here. I think that’s a concern for both sides: What is the cost and what’s in the report?”

After Nichols’s death, Memphis police officials swiftly disbanded a specialized street-crimes unit called SCORPION that patrolled high-crime areas but which had been accused by community activists of abusive and discriminatory tactics.

In September 2023, the Justice Department indicted the five officers involved in the beating of Nichols on federal civil rights, conspiracy and obstruction charges. Two officers struck plea agreements; three others were convicted in October 2024, including one found guilty of civil rights abuses and two of witness tampering.

“All of them have been convicted of something, and they’re going to jail,” RowVaughn Wells, Nichols’s mother, told reporters at the courthouse. “That’s how I feel. This has been a long journey for our family.”