MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A former Memphis police officer who has pleaded guilty to violating Tyre Nichols’ civil rights testified in tears Tuesday, saying he left Nichols’ young son fatherless, that he was sorry and that he wishes he had stopped the punches.
Desmond Mills took the stand in the trial of three former colleagues, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith, who are charged in the January 2023 beating. As video of the pummeling played, Mills testified in the most emotional moment for a former officer so far in the trial. The judge paused and gave him a bottle of water and a prosecutor gave Mills a moment to compose himself.
“I made his child fatherless,” said Mills, who used a baton to strike Nichols. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know sorry can’t bring him back.”
Mills said it hurt him to know he was a part of that beating.
“It hurt inside so much,” he said.
The officers used pepper spray and a Taser on Nichols, who was Black, during a traffic stop, but the 29-year-old ran away, police video shows. The five officers, who also are Black, then punched, kicked and hit him about a block from his home.
Mills also testified that he was looking to leave a crime suppression unit. He said he didn’t like the structure of the Scorpion Unit, nor did he like the “go-go-go” approach of members of the team, whose success was determined by arrest numbers and other statistics.
“I didn’t like the hostility” team members showed citizens, Mills said. He noted that Haley and Emmitt Martin were known as the Smash Bros. for being overly aggressive and that Haley did not always turn on his body camera. Martin took a plea deal and already testified in the trial.
Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating. An autopsy report shows Nichols — the father of a boy who is now 7 — died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
Mills said he was teamed up with Bean when Bean joined the Scorpion Unit in 2022. Mills said Bean was inexperienced and he had to instruct Bean on how to differentiate between the types of drugs they found at crime scenes.
Jurors again watched Mills’ body camera, which shows him pepper spraying Nichols, who is on the ground. The video also shows Nichols calling for his mother and Bean and Smith punching him without trying to handcuff him, Mills said.
Defense attorneys have raised questions about whether Martin and Justin Smith should have been working on the streets that day. Martin has testified he was angry after an on-the-job injury and had seen a counselor before returning to the Scorpion team four days before the Nichols beating.
Justin Smith hurt his knee the day before the Nichols beating and was on desk duty before his supervisor, Lt. Dewayne Smith, asked him to go out and join his team the night of the beating, Dewayne Smith testified.
Mills testified that Justin Smith had checked on Martin and he was not doing well after getting hit with a car on the job.
“Mentally, something was wrong” with Martin, Mills said.
Mills said he pepper sprayed Nichols because he thought it would help get the handcuffs on him. He said he did not try to help get the handcuffs on Nichols because “I was just focused on using the pepper spray.”
Mills noted that he weighed 305-310 pounds (about 140 kilograms) at the time, Martin weighed about 270-280 (about 125 kilograms), and the other officers also outweighed Nichols, who was the “smallest person out there,” Mills said.
The trial has entered its third week.
The Scorpion Unit, which looked for drugs, illegal guns and violent offenders, was disbanded after Nichols’ death.
Haley, Bean and Justin Smith pleaded not guilty to federal charges of excessive force, failure to intervene, and obstructing justice through witness tampering.
The Associated Press analyzed what the officers claimed happened on the night of the beating and what video shows. The AP sifted through hundreds of pages of evidence and hours of video from the scene, including officer body cameras.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas. A trial date in state court has not been set.
Associated Press reporter Jonathan Mattise contributed from Nashville, Tennessee.
FILE - Former Memphis police officer, Desmond Mills Jr., accused of murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, appears with his attorney at an indictment hearing at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill, File)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday with a call for the world to do more to combat climate change. He mentioned the fires ravaging the rainforest back home — but not the fact they're adding to criticism of his administration's own environmental stewardship.
Brazil's Amazon saw 38,000 blazes last month, the most for any August since 2010, according to data from the country's space institute. September is on track to repeat that ignoble feat. Smoke has been choking residents of many cities, including metropolis Sao Paulo that's thousands of miles away. Lula has cast these fires as the result of drought and criminals, and proposed harsher punishments for environmental offenders.
“The Amazon is going through the worst drought in 45 years. Forest fires spreading across the country have already devoured 5 million hectares (19,300 square miles) in August alone," he said in New York. "My government does not outsource responsibility nor abdicate its sovereignty. We have already done a lot, but we know that much more needs to be done.”
But enforcement has been hampered by a six-month strike at environmental regulator Ibama that ended in August — three months after his administration was aware of significantly heightened risk of fires amid the historic drought.
At the same time, members of his Cabinet have presented conflicting views of environmental and energy policies. And Lula's rhetoric about tapping oil reserves near the mouth of the Amazon River has worried environmentalists who want Brazil to drive a global transition to clean energy. This month, he promised to pave a road in the Amazon experts say will drive deforestation.
Lula’s speech was on point, but “the climate leader that the world was waiting for did not show up,” the Climate Observatory, comprised of 30 Brazilian non-profits, said in a statement.
“Climate was just one more topic in a along list of themes addressed by Lula, from the recent conflict in Lebanon to the urgency of regulating artificial inteliigence and the long-standing cry for U.N. reform,” Lula said. “The president promised to deliver this year a climate goal ... but did not offer a vision of what Brazil aims to do as chair of the COP 30 (climate summit) to accelerate the fight against this crisis.”
When Lula was last president, between 2003 and 2010, he repeatedly spoke about climate change, holding up Brazil as a beacon of conservation for the future and blaming rich countries for polluting the planet while failing to help developing nations maintain their forests. He campaigned in 2022 while presenting himself as an environmental alternative to his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, whose rhetoric stoked destruction in the Amazon. Once in office, Lula's administration significantly reduced illegal Amazon deforestation in its first year.
But now, his calls for an awakening to the need for collective environmental action may have been heard differently, according to Brazilian political consultant Thomas Traumann.
“Lula has always attended international gatherings with a lot to say, with many calling him a champion on the environment. This time that won’t ring true,” Traumann said before Lula's speech. “We can’t say his administration is to blame for all these fires. There’s a lot of support for them at the local level. But some of this would never have taken place if the Ibama strike hadn't gone for so long.”
Lula announced on Friday that anyone caught setting fires in forests will pay fines of up to $1,800 per hectare. He also announced additional spending of up to 500 million reais ($90 million) to fight fires nationwide. Earlier Tuesday, he met U.N Secretary-General António Guterres to discuss next year’s COP-30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belem. And speaking to global leaders at the General Assembly, Lula held fast to his defiant tone on climate change, seeking to hold developed nations to account.
“The planet cannot make demands of the next generation and is fed up with climate deals that are not fulfilled. It is tired of neglected carbon emission reduction goals,” he said. “Beyond facing the challenge of climate change, we are also fighting those who profit from environmental degradation.”
His call for reduced emissions stood in contrast to comments from Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira at an oil conference in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, saying Brazil will explore offshore oil reserves near the Amazon.
“We cannot and will not give up on knowing the country's true oil potential," he said. “As long as there is demand for gas and for oil, Brazil will follow that market.”
Environmentalist Tica Minami said during a protest outside the oil conference that Lula's administration “has sent conflicting signals in its policies.”
“It is not only the executive branch; Brazil's government as a whole that needs to prioritize protection,” she said. “Our government needs to be courageous and do what needs to be done for the environment and its people. But companies also have a lot of responsibility. They are the ones profiting from the destruction of the environment."
See more of AP’s coverage of the U.N. General Assembly at https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks to the United Nations General Assembly during the Summit for the Future, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
