Police video captured images of officers beating and kicking Nichols, hitting him with batons, spraying him with pepper spray and firing a stun gun at him after a traffic stop on January 7. The case has renewed a national discussion of race relations and police brutality.
The five officers, who are all out on bail, entered pleas during an appearance in Shelby County Criminal Court in Memphis, where they have been formally charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official harassment. Was applied.
“I feel so numb. I’m waiting for this nightmare – waiting for someone to wake me up,” Rowan Wells, the victim’s mother, dressed in black, said outside the courthouse after the hearing.
“I want every single one of those officers to look me in the face,” she said. “He didn’t even dare to look at me.”