White officer involved in fatal arrest of Tyre Nichols fired: Memphis Police Department

A white officer involved in the fatal arrest of Tyre Nichols last month has been fired from the Memphis Police Department for several conduct violations during the incident. 

The department said in a statement on Friday that Preston Hemphill was terminated from his role for violations of personal conduct, truthfulness, compliance with regulations concerning a taser, compliance with regulations concerning equipment and inventory and processing recovered property. 

“After a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding this incident, we determined that Officer Preston violated multiple department policies,” the department said. 

Hemphill is the sixth of Memphis police officers fired from the department for their actions after Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was pulled over. The first five officers, who are also Black, were fired and charged with multiple crimes including second-degree murder. 

Body camera video showed that the five officers brutally beat Nichols for three minutes and left him on the ground without medical attention for more than 20 minutes after. The footage also showed Hemphill was the one who pulled Nichols out of his vehicle after police stopped him.

ABC reported that Hemphill’s body camera footage showed him chasing Nichols after he ran away from the officers during their first confrontation. But Hemphill turned back to the location of the traffic stop instead of continuing to the second location where the five officers eventually beat him.

Hemphill was previously “relieved of duty” at the start of the department’s investigation. A seventh officer, who was not identified, has also been suspended. 

The department said after announcing the two suspensions that their suspensions was delayed because it focused on investigating the five officers who were directly involved in beating Nichols first. 

“This is still an ongoing administrative investigation, and multiple MPD officers are under investigation for departmental policy violations,” the department said in its Friday statement. 

It said Hemphill has served in the department since March 2018. 

The Memphis Fire Department has also fired two emergency medical technicians and a lieutenant who “failed to conduct an adequate patient assessment” of Nichols.