What the Prosecution’s Case Has Revealed About Tyre Nichols’s Death

Federal prosecutors rested their case on Thursday against three former Memphis police officers who face civil rights and obstruction charges in the beating and death of Tyre Nichols last year.

Over a dozen days, prosecutors called nearly 20 witnesses as they pressed their argument that the former officers, Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith, had both deprived Mr. Nichols of his civil rights in a Jan. 7, 2023, traffic stop and conspired to lie about it.

Taken together, the testimony painted a picture of officers who did not stop one another from pummeling or restraining Mr. Nichols, a 29-year-old Black FedEx worker, even when he did not pose a threat. And it captured an overarching culture in the Memphis Police Department that allowed for secrecy and excessive punishment, especially when a person tried to flee police custody.

Here are some of the key revelations from the prosecution’s case.

Five former Memphis officers, all of whom are Black, were indicted on federal charges last September. Two have since pleaded guilty to some of the charges.

When one of those two officers, Emmitt Martin III, took the stand, he described a tumultuous few days back on the job after he had been hit by a person fleeing in their car and sidelined to a desk role. Already angry about a lack of arrests that night in January 2023, he said he saw Mr. Nichols speed up to beat a red light and soon initiated a traffic stop.