Police practices in the US city came under scrutiny following the fatal law enforcement beating of Tyre Nichols in January 2023.
Officials in Memphis, Tennessee, have pushed back against calls for greater oversight of the city’s police force after a report by the United States Department of Justice found widespread and discriminatory use of force practices.
In a news conference on Thursday, Mayor Paul Young said that the city has been taking steps to address police abuses but is sceptical of entering a binding agreement with the federal government, known as a consent decree.
“We believe we can make more effective and meaningful change by working together with community input and independent national experts than with a bureaucratic, costly and complicated federal government consent decree,” Young said.
The Justice Department released the investigation, carried out by its civil rights division, on Wednesday.
The 73-page report found that Black people in Memphis are arrested or penalised for loitering and curfew violations at 13 times the rate for white people. Local law enforcement also cites or arrests Black people for disorderly conduct at 3.6 times the rate for white people.
Most notably, the investigation concluded that Memphis Police Department (MPD) officers “regularly escalate” situations involving nonviolent offences.
“MPD officers resort to force likely to cause pain or injury almost immediately in response to low-level,
nonviolent offenses, even when people are not aggressive,” the report explained.
But the report added that police officers accused of beating people in restraints or handcuffs face little accountability from supervisors.
The Justice Department’s investigation was initiated after a video emerged of Memphis police beating a 29-year-old Black man named Tyre Nichols in 2023.
Nichols was pulled from his car during a traffic stop, and when he broke free and fled, five officers pursued him into a residential neighbourhood where his mother lived.
They pulled Nichols to the ground, hitting and kicking him while he called out to his mother for help.
That beating is one of several instances of police abuse that have sparked nationwide protests and calls to address discrimination in the US policing and the criminal justice system.
In October, a federal jury convicted three police officers of charges related to the beating. An autopsy found Nichols died from repeated blows to the head.
Black residents of the city and criminal justice activists say they had been expressing their frustration with police practices for years before the fatal beating of Nichols.
But city officials have sought to walk a line between acknowledging the thorny issues around policing and committing to enforceable changes.
Memphis City Attorney Tannera Gibson said in a letter to the Justice Department that the city is not ready to discuss potential reforms with the police department, stating that authorities need time to look through the findings.
Gibson also suggested that the investigation had been rushed, since it “only took 17 months to complete, compared to an average of 2-3 years in almost every other instance”.
In a news conference on Thursday, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division called the probe “comprehensive and exhaustive”.
“The people of Memphis deserve a police department and city that protects their civil and constitutional rights, garners trust and keeps them safe,” said Clarke.
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