The internal investigator who initially investigated the beating spoke with now former Lt. Dewayne Smith, who seemed to be at the hospital, the night Nichols was beaten. According to the internal investigative report, at 11:49 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2023, Smith told the investigator that Nichols was in intensive care, on a ventilator “and had a bump on his head.”
Smith told the investigator a similar story to the original incident report, saying Nichols was resisting and grabbing for an officer’s gun. The internal investigator then reviewed the body camera footage.
“(Former officer Preston) Hemphill exited with weapon pointed,” the investigator noted of Hemphill’s body camera footage. “One officer at the driver side. One officer at the passenger side. Driver is removed from driver side. Profanity. Non-violent. Complied with getting on the ground.”
The investigator also noted Hemphill saying there “ain’t nothing in the car, so I don’t know what he was trying to hide or just on something.” Defense attorneys for the officers have since alleged that Nichols’ car had stolen credit and debit cards, and hallucinogenic substances inside it, citing a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report. Those court filings seemingly contradict Hemphill’s statement in the bodycam footage.
The Ridgeway Station’s daily shift summary showed no drugs of any type were recovered on the day of Nichols’ beating. The shift summary log would have included drugs recovered from Nichols’ vehicle, had there been any. MPD declined to comment on the log Wednesday, saying that the department does not comment on pending litigation.
When the relief of duty notice for the officers involved was approved by MPD Deputy Chief Paul Wright early in the morning of Jan. 8, 2023, Wright also approved mandatory drug screens for Hemphill, Emmitt Martin, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills and Justin Smith. The results from that test were not included in the released documents.
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A response to resistance form, which officers are required to fill out when any amount of force is used during an arrest, also conflicted with what was seen in video of the altercation with Nichols.
“After struggling with the suspect Detective T. Bean utilized soft hands techniques with a closed hand which was not effective. The suspect continued to resist officers, in which additional officers made the scene to place the suspect into custody,” the form read.
The statement conflicts with what is shown in body camera footage. Soft hands techniques typically include open palm strikes like slaps or pulling an individual around. Hard hands techniques include actions like punches and kicks. Videos show officers repeatedly punching and kicking Nichols.
The reason for use-of-force listed on the form was “protect others.”
“Soft hand technique with closed hand”
Soft hand techniques - slap
Hard hand techniques - punch
So lie