Ex-US police officers plead not guilty to killing Tyre Nichols

Five former United States police officers have pleaded not guilty in the killing of Tyre Nichols, whose death following a violent traffic stop in the city of Memphis set off protests and renewed calls for an end to police violence.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith made their first court appearances with their lawyers on Friday before a judge in Shelby County Criminal Court.

The former officers pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression in relation to the January 7 arrest of Nichols, which was captured on video.

The footage shows the officers beating the 29-year-old father and FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the Nichols family’s legal team likened to the 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King, which was also videotaped.

“I am numb, just numb as I can be right now,” Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, said on Friday as she walked into the courtroom dressed in black.

After the court hearing, Wells dismissed the officers’ not-guilty plea, saying that it was expected.

“I’m going to leave it up to the district attorney’s office to get them prosecuted … and then they’ll find them guilty,” Wells told reporters outside the courtroom. “So, them saying they’re not guilty, that’s a preliminary thing. Everybody’s going to say that.”

She pledged to attend every session in court going forward.

“I want each and every one of those police officers to be able to look me in the face. They haven’t done that yet. They couldn’t even do that today. They didn’t even have the courage to look at me in my face after what they did to my son,” Wells said.

Nichols, who died in hospital three days after the traffic stop, attempted to converse with police as they shouted orders and threatened him with violence during the ordeal.