MEMPHIS, Tennessee — Two emergency workers stood still for minutes without providing medical assistance to a seriously injured person Band Nichols who was lying on the ground after being kicked and punched by five Memphis police officers, according to video footage shown Thursday during the trial of three of the officers charged in the fatal beating.
The officers’ body camera footage shows paramedics Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge standing and walking next to Nichols as he lies on his left side on the ground.
After about five minutes, the EMTs approach Nichols. Long says, “Hey, man. Hey. Talk to me.” Nichols doesn’t respond.
Another video seen by the jury on Thursday shows Nichols finally receiving medical attention when paramedic Jesse Guy and his partner arrive on the scene.
Former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith are accused of acting with “deliberate indifference” as Nichols lay on the ground and struggled with his injuries. A criminal complaint alleges the former officers “deliberately” disregarded Nichols’ medical needs by failing to provide him with medical attention and failing to tell a police dispatcher and emergency medical personnel that Nichols had been repeatedly struck. They are also accused of using excessive force and witness coercion. They have pleaded not guilty.
Video footage shows the officers standing around and talking as Nichols struggles with his injuries. Smith’s attorney played the video in an attempt to show that the firefighters also failed to help.
Long and Sandridge were fired for violating fire department regulations in connection with Nichols’ death, but they have not yet been charged.
Nichols, who was black, was pepper-sprayed and struck with a stun gun during a traffic stop, but ran away. police video shows. The five officers, who are also black, then beat him about a block from his home as he called for his mother.
Nichols died on January 10, 2023, three days after the assault. An autopsy report shows that Nichols — the father of a boy who is now 7 — died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
Guy testified Wednesday that Long and Sandridge did not say whether they had checked Nichols’ pulse and heart rate, and they did not say whether they had given him oxygen. When one of Bean’s attorneys asked him if that information would have been helpful in treating Nichols, Guy said yes.
In the ambulance, Guy performed CPR and mechanical ventilation. A neurologist who treated Nichols testified Thursday that Nichols’ pulse returned about five minutes after he arrived at the hospital’s emergency room. A hospital nurse testified that Nichols had no pulse and had not been breathing for about 25 minutes.
The officers were members of the Memphis Police Department’s Scorpion Unit, which searched for drugs, illegal weapons and violent offenders. It was disbanded after Nichols’ death. The department fired the three officers, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., and all five were indicted on federal charges. Martin and Mills have arrangements made.
Prosecutors have said officers used unnecessary force to punish Nichols for running from them after he was pepper-sprayed and stunned during the traffic stop. In her opening statement, prosecutor Elizabeth Rogers referred to the punishment as a “pay taxes.”
Former Scorpion Unit member Kyle Coudriet testified Thursday that he had seen his teammates use force and punishment during previous arrests, including one in which Haley and Martin beat a man suspected of pointing a gun at another officer and posting about it online.
Coudriet said he was “ashamed” that he couldn’t stop his teammates from beating that suspect. He wasn’t there when his colleagues beat Nichols. Coudriet has since left the Memphis Police Department for a job with the Wyoming Highway Patrol.
Coudriet said Haley and Martin were nicknamed the Smash Bros. because they were “overly aggressive.” He said Bean was just a “quiet guy.”
Under cross-examination by Smith’s attorney Martin Zummach, Coudriet admitted that he lied to the FBI during interviews about his work with the Scorpion Unit.
The Associated Press analyzed what the officers claimed happened the night of the assault compared to the video of the incident. The AP dug through hundreds of pages of evidence And hours of video from the crime scene, including the officers’ bodycams.
The five officers have also been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they have pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. No date has been set for the state court trial.