This story was updated on May 27, 2025, with the correct spelling of Tyré Nichols name.
The other day, I was talking with our enterprise reporter, Mike Finch, who, along with government accountability reporter Katherine Burgess, has sat in on the ongoing federal trial of the officers charged in the beating death of Tyré Nichols.
There’s much in the day-to-day of a trial that’s boring and repetitive, Mike said; there’s a lot of rephrasing of questions in the legal search for answers. But, he said, he was most struck by how “casually corrupt” the Memphis Police Department came across in the testimony of former MPD officer Emmitt Martin.
Mike was talking about things like doctoring police reports to make it seem officers witnessed things firsthand when they weren’t on the scene. But listening to him and reading other reports from the trial, I’ve also been thinking about the moral corruption inherent to the MPD.
I don’t use “inherent” randomly; there are practices that have been codified in policing for generations. Think about the “run tax” — a punch, a kick — citizens pay if they dare run during a police action. It’s equivalent, as Mike pointed out, to the “rough ride” that killed Freddie Gray in Baltimore, another practice well known among officers.
And they aren’t new. My thoughts went to Memphis-raised author Leta McCollough Seletzky and her book, “The Kneeling Man.” I called her; she’s been following the case, too, and Martin’s testimony made her think of her father’s life in the MPD.
In her book, Leta wrote about a pursuit he made in 1968. The suspect ran but was shot in the shoulder; he ended up coming back toward the police, giving up the chase:
Mac put his arm around him and led him back to the shopping center, where squad cars now filled the parking lot. Sweating and winded, Mac handed the boy over to two white officers. One of them struck the boy across the face before shoving him into the back of a patrol car.
When Mac saw it, he felt a flash of anger. But in the heat of his outrage, he also felt the sting of powerlessness, knowing that as a Black rookie fresh out of the academy, there was nothing he could do about it. Who would he complain to, and what would it accomplish?
There it is, the tax, being passed along with a bitter dose of compliance and resignation.
I’ve been thinking about the five officers in Tyré’s case, none over 35, fairly new to the force, so quickly turned into the kind of people who would do what they did. I asked Leta about that, and she pointed to police training. She wrote about her father’s training:
The instructors taught cadets to respect the rights of all citizens, take their complaints seriously, and uphold the law. But when a conflict arose, they needed to take charge of the situation. That meant barking authoritative commands in a harsh tone, using profanity. Officers didn’t ask, “Please stand against the wall”; they shouted, “Up against the wall, motherfucker!”
When it came to making arrests, instructors focused on subduing combative suspects with holds and takedowns. Run-of-the-mill encounters with suspects who complied? Not covered. Officers were to use the level of force necessary to subdue the subject. If the person escalated, then the officer should escalate. The order of escalation went from the hand to Mace—which the department would provide to officers beginning December 1—to the nightstick or flashlight.
“They learn about policing the community versus protecting the community,” she said.
That makes a difference.
In the early reporting around Tyré’s death, there were reports that the issue was the lack of training, that the officers were inexperienced and not qualified to be appointed to a special unit. There was talk of this during the trial, too. But the corruption seems rooted in experience and training. “A lot of the instruction happens on the job beyond the books and the classroom,” Leta told me.
One of the four supervisors of the SCORPION unit was a 20-year veteran. What did he teach them?
I suspect those lessons, bitter at first and then swallowed whole, are why the corruption feels routine to officers, accepted as a value allied with loyalty.
Yet, as we charge these officers and hold them to account, there’s something else getting away scot-free.
In our conversation, Leta presented a question, larger than those being explored in the court but equally important: “What does the power structure ask of you?”
Adrienne Johnson Martin is co-executive director of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at adrienne.martin@mlk50.com
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