Three former Memphis police officers were convicted of federal felonies on Oct. 3 following the death of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old black man who died after being beaten by police during a traffic stop last year.
Nichols’s death sparked national outrage after police video showed he was beaten, pepper sprayed, and shocked with a stun gun by five police officers—who were all black—during a traffic stop in Memphis, Tennessee, on Jan. 7, 2023. He died from his injuries three days later.
A federal jury found three officers—Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean, and Justin Smith—guilty of witness tampering to cover up Nichols’s fatal beating, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on Thursday….