Kazeem Owoseni
The Memphis Police Department has disbanded a unit, called Scorpion unit, following the release of the video that showed officers’ brutal attack on a 29 year old Boy, Tyre Nichols, and the reaction of the American populace.
The department which housed the five disengaged police officers, was disbanded following the outcry by the protesters, who trooped to the streets of America, demanding justice for Nichols.
Several protesters were gathered in New York’s Washington Square Park, marched through Manhattan while scores of police officers also walked together with them.
However, the police department confirmed that the unit was permanently deactivated, after the police chief, spoke with members of Nichols’ family, community leaders and other police officers.
Friends and Family among the protesters, described Nichols as a very talented skateboarder, who grew up in Sacramento, California, and moved to Memphis before the coronavirus pandemic.
Nichols, who was a Father of a four year old child and a staff of FedEx was said to have enrolled himself, in a Photography class before his life was cut short, after the officers’ brutal attack on him, at a traffic stop in Memphis, US.
According to one of his circle of friends, a 42 year old Nate Spates Jr., said, “He liked what he liked, and he marched to the beat of his own drum.”
The scorpion is a special police unit, formed in October 2021, for street crimes operation, to restore peace, in the neighbourhood and the five disengaged police officers who brutalized Nichols, were all members of the unit.
Nichols’ death is one of its kind in America, where police officers use excessive amount of force against the black minority.
It would be recalled that George Floyd, a black man also died of police brutality in 2020, when a white Minneapolis Officer knelt on his neck, for more than nine minutes.
